Charles Bentley

Highland Landscape with Figures, watercolour c. 1847, Yale Center for British Art Charles Bentley (1805/6–4 September 1854), was an English watercolour painter of marine, coastal and river scenes.

Life

Bentley was born in 1805 or 1806, the son of a master-carpenter and builder living in Tottenham Court Road, London. He was sent to work colouring prints for Theodore Fielding to whom he was eventually apprenticed in order to learn aquatinting. Bentley became a lifelong friend of another, rather younger, pupil of Fielding, William Callow. During his apprenticeship he was sent to Paris, probably to assist work on the plates for Excursion sur les Cotes et dans les Ports de Normandie''' (Paris, 1823-5), most of which were after watercolours by Richard Bonington.

His works are in a good number of British museums, and some American ones (though they will usually not be on display), as well as appearing on the art market fairly frequently.