Ataraipu, or the Devil’s Rock

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Watercolour painter and engraver Charles Bentley is best-known for painting breezy scenes off the English coast. He was born in London; the son of a master carpenter. Bentley was apprenticed to printmaker Theodore Fielding and later spent time in Paris with Theodore’s brother, watercolourist Newton Fielding. From 1827 Bentley made a modest living as an engraver and illustrator. He was elected a member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours (1843) and exhibited 209 works from 1834 to his death. He was a friend of artist William Callow; with whom he made several sketching trips, including a tour of Normandy (1841). The two shared a home in Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury, from 1843 to 1846. Bentley died in Hampstead, at the age of 48.

Places

South America, Guyana, Ataraipu Rock

Subjects

rest/sleep, topography, Victorian Genre, smoke, fire, moon, mountain, rock formation, stone/rock, cliff, man, hammock

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, colour lithograph

Artist

Charles Bentley (1806 - 1854)
John Richard Coke Smyth (1808 - 1882)

Title

Ataraipu, or the Devil’s Rock

Date

published 3 August 1840

Medium

Colour lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Parker Gallery, November 1956

GAC number

3632