A View of the Head of Ulswater toward Patterdale

Location

Country: Finland
City: Helsinki
Place: British Embassy

Painter and engraver William Bellers is thought to have enrolled at the University of Oxford in 1734 as ‘illuminator’ (painter) and ‘privilegiatus’ (licensed to work within the university). He later mainly made views of the Lake District in the manner of George Lambert and also painted or etched views in Birmingham, Derbyshire, Hampshire, Sussex and along the English coast. He exhibited over 60 works at the Free Society of Artists (1761-73). The rights to his plates were purchased by Robert Sayer in c.1766 and then by John Boydell in c.1769. Boydell issued a series of eight prints in 1774. Bellers sold prints and drawings by himself and the Old Masters from his home in Poppins Court, off Fleet Street. Nothing is known of him after 1773.
Draughtsman, etcher and line engraver Jean Baptiste Claude Chatelain (real name Phillipe) was a Frenchman, born in London. He fought at Flanders before specialising in landscape and topographical views. He made prints after works by 17th-century painters as well as contemporary artists, and also after his own drawings. Chatelain worked in London for the engraver and printseller John Boydell (1720-1804), for whom he engraved works by Claude and Poussin, and also English views. He produced some 50 views in and around London. Chatelain’s unique style of engraving and etching has led to his plates being described as both ‘lazy’ and as demonstrating ‘masterly wildness’.
Nothing is known about the early life of the landscape engraver James Mason. He is first mentioned by engraver and antiquary George Vertue, working for the publisher Arthur Pond in 1744, when he was probably in his early twenties. Mason later established himself as a popular engraver, co-publishing some of his own works. He produced several engravings after paintings by landscape and scene painter George Lambert, the majority of which are dated between 1745 and 1761. Mason engraved considerably less after 1780. He died in 1805 at his home in Winchester Row, Paddington, and was buried nearby at St Mary’s Church. He referred to himself as engraver and shopkeeper in his will, which suggests that he also ran a print shop.

Places

England, Lake District, Cumbria, Ullswater

Subjects

rowing boat, fisherman, topography, landscape C18th, dog, lake, mountain, man, coat of arms, fishing net

Materials & Techniques

engraving, coloured engraving

Artist

William Bellers
Jean Baptiste Claude Chatelain (c.1710 - c.1771)
James Mason (1710 - c.1780)

Title

A View of the Head of Ulswater toward Patterdale

Date

published 18 April 1754

Medium

Coloured engraving

Acquisition

Purchased from Frank T Sabin, October 1959

GAC number

5025