Rørbye, Martinus

Hans helbred var ikke godt, og efter at han 29. august 1839 havde ægtet Rose Frederikke Schiøtt (1810 – 1859), rejste han om efteråret atter til syden i håb om, at et ophold i Italien skulle styrke hans helbred.

Trods al sygelighed malede han under dette ophold i Italien et af sine livfuldeste billeder: Torvet i Amalfi (udstillet 1842).

Efter hjemkomsten i 1841 udførte han på grundlag af ældre og nyere studier 2 så forskellige, men i sund opfattelse lige værdifulde billeder som Osterlændere uden for et tyrkisk Kaffehus (udstillet 1845) og Skagboere ved Stranden (udstillet 1848), der begge tilhører Skagens Museum

I 1844 blev han professor ved Akademiets Modelskole og så en mere tryg fremtid i møde, men en underlivssygdom, der fra ungdomsårene havde tæret på hans kræfter, fik forholdsvis pludselig karakter af en kræftsygdom i maven. Efter et kort sygeleje afgik han ved døden 29. marts 1848, efterladende sin unge hustru som enke med flere små børn.

His health was not good, and after he had married Rose Frederikke Schiøtt (1810 - 1859) on 29 August 1839, he travelled to the South again in the autumn, hoping that a stay in Italy would strengthen his health.

Despite his illness, he painted one of his most lively pictures during this stay in Italy: The Square at Amalfi (exhibited in 1842).

After his return in 1841, he produced, on the basis of older and more recent studies, two pictures as different as they were equally valuable in a healthy sense: Easter Islanders Outside a Turkish Coffee House (exhibited in 1845) and Skagboere at the Beach (exhibited in 1848), both of which belong to the Skagen Museum.

In 1844 he became a professor at the Academy's Model School and looked forward to a more secure future, but a lower abdominal disease that had sapped his strength from his youth onwards relatively suddenly took on the character of a stomach cancer. After a short illness, he died on 29 March 1848, leaving his young wife a widow with several small children.