Joseph Clayton Bentley
English, 1809 – 1851
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Joseph Clayton Bentley was a British engraver and painter.
Bentley was born at Bradford, Yorkshire. He began his artistic career as a landscape-painter, but in 1832 he went to London, where he studied engraving under Robert Brandard.
Bentley's engravings included plates for the publications of Fisher, Son & Co.; George Virtue, for whose Gems of European Art, he engraved The Fountain after Francesco Zuccarelli, and A Sunny Day after Cuyp; and for The Art Journal. He also produced work for the Vernon Gallery: The Brook by the Way, after Thomas Gainsborough; Lake Avernus, after Richard Wilson; The Valley Farm after John Constable; The Windmill, after John Linnell; The Way to Church, after Thomas Creswick; and The Wooden Bridge, the Port of Leghorn, and Sea-shore in Holland, after Augustus Wall Callcott. He worked quickly, and was exceptionally prolific.
Bentley continued to paint in parallel with his career as an engraver. From 1833 onwards he occasionally exhibited landscapes, mainly views in Yorkshire, at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, the Society of British Artists, and in the provinces.
He died at Sydenham on 9 October 1851.