The painting depicts the central character of the poem, Manfred, who is a noble and wealthy aristocrat

Aristocracy (class)

The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

, about to toss himself from the heights of the Jungfrau

Jungfrau

The Jungfrau is one of the main summits in the Bernese Alps, situated between the cantons of Valais and Bern in Switzerland...

 mountain. Manfred is, however, saved from death by a chamois

Chamois

The chamois, Rupicapra rupicapra, is a goat-antelope species native to mountains in Europe, including the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, the European Alps, the Tatra Mountains, the Balkans, parts of Turkey, and the Caucasus. The chamois has also been introduced to the South Island of New Zealand...

 hunter who happens upon him, and who is seen approaching in the background of the painting, clad in fur.
The detail seen on Manfred's face shows his deep psychological agony, and the reason for his desire for suicide.

In 1837

1837 in art

-Works:*John Martin – Manfred and the Witch of the Alps-Births:*February 12 – Thomas Moran, painter of the Hudson River School *May 8 – Alphonse Legros, painter and etcher *June 8 – Ivan Kramskoi, painter and art critic...

, John Martin

John Martin (painter)

John Martin was an English Romantic painter, engraver and illustrator.-Biography:Martin was born in July 1789, in a one-room family cottage, at Haydon Bridge, near Hexham in Northumberland, the 4th son of Fenwick Martin, a one time fencing master...

 painted an artwork of the same name

Manfred on the Jungfrau (1837)

In the time that the artwork was created, 'man and nature' was a theme that was popular among romantic artists and writers, and influences of this are evident within this watercolour work...

. Martin's version was a watercolour

Watercolor painting

Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...

, and focused more on the Jungfrau mountain than on the detail of Manfred and the hunter.