Charles Bentley Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

A very skilfully captured image of a dramatic seascape with vessels in choppy water. Charles Bentley (1806-1854) Vessels by a harbour in a swell Signed and dated 1846 Watercolour and scratching out 9 x 14¼ inches 14½ x 19¼ inches with the frame Charles Bentley was born in Tottenham Court Road, London. He was apprenticed as an engraver to Theodore Fielding, and went on to work in Paris with his brother, Newton Fielding, with whom he engraved a number of watercolours by Richard Parkes Bonington. This experience had a profound influence on his own development as a watercolorist. In 1827, Bentley set up as an engraver, and worked as an illustrator, though with little financial success. Concentrating instead on watercolour, he was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1834, and a full member nine years later. Over thirty years, he exhibited 209 works with the society, also showing work at the Society of British Artists and the New Society of Painters in Water Colours. Many of these exhibits were the fruits of extensive travels that Bentley made around the coasts of the British Isles, and to the Channel Islands and Normandy – the last in the company of fellow artist William Callow...