The work comprises three separate paintings on a theme of the end of the world, inspired by the Book of Revelation.
The paintings, The Plains of Heaven, The Last Judgement, and The Great Day of His Wrath, are generally considered to be among Martin's most important works, and have been described by some art critics as his masterpiece.
Critical opinion of Martin's work improved from the 1940s, and the Tate Gallery bought The Great Day of His Wrath in 1945.
The first element of the triptych, The Last Judgement, is the central piece, intended to be displayed between the peaceful landscape of The Plains of Heaven to the left and the turbulent scene in The Great Day of His Wrath to the right.
It combines elements of both, with a crowd of "saved" people to the left, and of the "damned" to the right, with the heavenly host above.
The virtuous men, women and children of the saved include portraits of around 40 famous people, many of which are painted on slips of paper that were pasted onto the canvas like a collage, awaiting their turn to appear before the throne.
An engraved key was published in 1855 identifying the principal figures among the saved, including many artists, writers and scientists such as Thomas More, Wesley, Canute, Colbert, Washington, Chaucer, Tasso, Corneille, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Newton, and Watt.
The Book of Revelation describes a scene that is painted by Martin: "... and, lo, there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood.
The landscape resembles the Italian views painted by J. M. W. Turner, with serene open vistas of greenery.
Martin painted similar landscapes in watercolours around 1850; examples include The Traveller and Joshua spying out the Land of Canaan.
Martin probably started work on the second and third paintings before the end of 1851, and a second agreement for their engraving was signed on 23 June 1852.
Seven days earlier, the pictures were first exhibited together in Newcastle upon Tyne, where they were shown at the Victoria Rooms in Grey Street from 10 February to 4 March 1854 (The Last Judgement had been put on display on its own at Maclean's gallery in London in June 1853).
The paintings went on an extensive tour of provincial cities, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, Hull, Leeds, Oxford, Birmingham, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Leicester, Bristol and Chester.
The Morning Post of 3 May 1855 greatly admired them: 'the simple grandeur of the conception, the broad artistic arrangement, and the wonderfully inventive faculty in detail.
It seems likely that they were bequeathed to a cousin, Maria Thompson, who had married the son of the Thomas Wilson, his host during his regular visits to the Isle of Man and who nursed him in his final illness.