Edward Prentis (1797–1854) was an English

genre painter Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...

. His scenes from contemporary domestic life were popular in his time. Sick Bed Prentis

Life

In 1825 Prentis contributed three pictures to the first exhibition of the

Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fif ...

, of which, in the following year, he was elected a member. From that time he was a steady supporter of the society, and all his works were shown in the Suffolk Street gallery. Prentis died in December 1854, leaving a widow and eleven children.

Works

Prentis first exhibited in 1823, at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

, sending ''A Girl with Matches'' and ''A Boy with Oranges''. His works for the Society of British Artists included such subjects as ''The Profligate's Return from the Alehouse'', 1829; ''Valentine's Eve'', 1835; ''The Wife'' and ''The Daughter'', 1836 (engraved, as a pair, by John Charles Bromley, 1837); and ''A Day's Pleasure'', 1841 (engraved). ''The Folly of Extravagance'', 1850, was the last picture he exhibited. Prentis also executed for the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

a series of drawings of the ivory objects and bronze bowls found at

Nimrud Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a majo ...

. Some were engraved on wood by John Thompson, and published in

Austen Henry Layard Sir Austen Henry Layard (; 5 March 18175 July 1894) was an English Assyriologist, traveller, cuneiformist, art historian, draughtsman, collector, politician and diplomat. He was born to a mostly English family in Paris and largely raised in It ...

's ''Monuments of Nineveh'' (1849). He donated some

Old Master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

drawings to the museum.britishmuseum.org, ''Edward Prentis (Biographical details)''.
/ref>

Notes

;Attribution

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prentis, Edward 1797 births 1854 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters British draughtsmen British genre painters 19th-century English male artists Members of the Royal Society of British Artists