Brazilian Fort St. Gabriel on the Rio Negro

Location

Country: Brazil
City: Brasilia
Place: British Embassy

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.
Illustrator and lithographer George Barnard was a pupil of artist James Duffield Harding. Barnard exhibited his work from 1832 to 1884 at the Royal Academy, British Institution, Society of Artists and the New Water Colour Society. In 1857 he published ‘The Theory and Practice of Landscape Painting in Watercolours’. By 1853 Barnard had been appointed Professor of Drawing at Rugby. His published works include six plates for ‘Reminiscences of Hastings’ (c.1839) and 27 for ‘Switzerland, Scenes and Incidents of Travel in the Bernese Oberland’ (1843). He also published several manuals on drawing and painting, including ‘The Handbook of Foliage and Foreground Drawing’ (1853) and ‘Drawing from Nature: A Series of Instructions in Sketching’ (1865).

Places

South America, Rio Negro, Brazil, São Gabriel da Cachoeira

Subjects

rowing boat, topography, landscape C19th, townscape/cityscape, tree, palm, mountain, river bank, river, stone/rock, man, house, fortress

Materials & Techniques

lithograph, coloured lithograph

Artist

Charles Bentley (1806 - 1854)
George Barnard ( - 1890)

Title

Brazilian Fort St. Gabriel on the Rio Negro

Date

published 3 August 1840

Medium

Coloured lithograph

Acquisition

Purchased from Parker Gallery, July 1966

GAC number

7519