CHARLES BENTLEY (1805-1854)
Ataraipu Rock (137 m - 450 ft)
Guyana
In Ataraipu or the Devil's Rock from 12 from Views in the Interior of Guiana,
after sketches taken during the expedition
Published by London: Whitehead & Co. for Ackerman & Co., 1841
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Ataraipu Rock is a cliff in Guyana (South America), located in the Upper Takatu-Upper Esseqiubo region in the southern part of the country, 400 km south of the capital Georgetown.
The terrain around Ataraipu Rock is mainly flat. Ataraipu Rock is located in a valley. The highest point nearby is 350 meters above sea level, 4.1 km northwest of Ataraipu Rock. The area around Ataraipu Rock is almost unpopulated, with less than two inhabitants per square kilometer. There are no communities nearby. In the surroundings around Ataraipu Rock, mainly green-green deciduous forest grows. Savanna hclimate prevails in the area.
The artist
Charles Bentley was an English watercolour painter of coastal and river scenery. 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. 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.
Bentley painted scenes all over Britain, in Jersey, the north of Ireland, and in Normandy, which he visited several times with Callow between 1836 and 1841. He also exhibited views of Venice, Holland and Düsseldorf, but it is not certain that he actually went to these places, as he is known to have painted works after sketches by other people, such as his paintings of Trebizond and Abydos, shown in 1841 and 1849, based on drawings by Coke Smyth. He also worked up the illustrations for 12 Views in the Interior of Guiana (above) , published by Rudolf Ackermann in 1841, from studies done on an expedition to South America by John Morison.
Bentley was not financially successful: Samuel Redgrave described him as "uncertain in his transactions, and always poor". He died of cholera on 4 September 1854, leaving a widow.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
