Haymaking

William Bennett ran his family’s woollen drapery shop in London before selling it in 1841 to become a full-time artist at the age of 30. The next year he exhibited his first work at the Royal Academy, and in 1848 became a member of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours (later the Institute of Painters in Water Colours). Bennett, like his mentor David Cox, was an insular artist and preferred to paint the British countryside – Yorkshire, Wales, Scotland – and scenes of the south coast of England.