William James Bennett (1787 – 1844) after William Westall (1781 – 1850)
Christ Church Cathedral (1814)

Aquatint with original hand colouring
19 x 26 cm

Published by Rudolph Ackermann (1764 – 1834).

An interior of Christ Church’s magnificent Cathedral. Engraved for Ackermann’s ‘A History of the University of Cambridge, Its Colleges, Halls and Public Buildings’.

William James Bennett was a British-born painter and engraver. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and was a pupil of Westall’s. He was a founder member of the “Associated Artists in Watercolour” in 1808, and twelve years later was elected an Associate of the Water-Colour Society. He went to the United States around 1826, and became a member of the National Academy of Design at New York in 1828, where he exhibited watercolour landscapes and seascapes, and engravings. In the 1830s and early 1840s he produced a series of aquatints of topographical views, from both his own paintings and those of others.

William Westall was a British landscape artist. He was born in Hertford and enrolled at the Royal Academy schools in 1799. He later became the draughtsman for a voyage to Australia and the South Seas. After being shipwrecked, he travelled to Canton in China and to India, staying in Bombay for several months. He returned to England in 1805 but later set off for Madeira and Jamaica. He became a member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours (1811) and an associate of the Academy (1812). Following a mental breakdown, he regularly visited the Lake District and published ‘Views of the Valley and Vale of Keswick’ (1820). His series of aquatints of the Thames, the great universities, and England’s public schools for Ackermann are among his most popular works.

Rudolph Ackermann was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. In 1795 he established a print-shop and drawing-school at 96 Strand. Here Ackermann set up a lithographic press and began a trade in prints. He later began to manufacture colours and thick carton paper for landscape and miniature painters. Within three years the premises had become too small and he moved to 101 Strand, in his own words “four doors nearer to Somerset House”, the seat of the Royal Academy of Arts. Between 1797 and 1800 Ackermann rapidly developed his print and book publishing business, encompassing many different genres including topography, caricature, portraits, transparencies and decorative prints.

Condition: Generally very good – some wear and staining to margins which will be hidden under mount and a couple of spots.

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