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JOHN VARLEY O.W.S. (1778 (Hackney) – 1842 (London)
Figures in a Landscape
Watercolour. 3”
x 4 ¾” (75mm x
120mm)
Overall framed size
Provenance:
The Albany Gallery, Bury Street, St James’s, London 1985
(removed from an album) IMAGE IMAGE
“Landscape with Cottage and Figures”
Watercolour.
Signed lower left
4” x 6 5/8” (101mm x 168mm)
Overall framed size 15 ¼” x 17 3/16” (385mm x
437mm)
Provenance: From an album of early watercolours
(FOR A SIMILAR EXAMPLE SEE “JOHN VARLEY” BY C.M.
KAUFFMAN
PLATE 30, PAGE 128 “LANDSCAPE WITH COTTAGE”
CATALOGUE OF THE JOHN VARLEY WATERCOLOURS IN THE
COLLECTION OF THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM) IMAGE IMAGE
John Varley was
a landscape and architectural watercolourist. He was born at Hackney in 1778 and was the
brother of Cornelius Varley and father of Albert Fleetwood Varley and Charles
Smith Varley. At first
he was apprenticed to a silversmith,
and later to a law stationer. Subsequently
he obtained employment with a portrait painter in Holborn, and studied under
J.C. Barrow, a teacher of drawing from about 1794. He was one of the young artists patronized by
Dr. Monro.
After visiting Peterborough with Barrow, he exhibited for the first time
at the Royal Academy in 1798; “Peterborough Cathedral” and continued to exhibit
there until 1843. He also exhibited at
the British Institute and Suffolk Street Gallery, but chiefly at the Old Watercolour Society which he helped to found in 1804 and
where he exhibited 739 works. His early
style is broad and simple, deriving great freshness from pure tints and
facility of treatment. Varley published
works on drawing, perspective and astrology including A Treatise on the Principles of Landscape
Drawing (1816-21); A Pictorial
Treatise on the Art of Drawing in Perspective (1821); A Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy (1828) and had a considerable
reputation as an art teacher, numbering among his pupils F.O. Finch, William
Henry Hunt, Copley Fielding, Turner of Oxford, David Cox, John Linnell and Mulready.
Examples of
work by John Varley are in the British Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum;
Aberdeen Art Gallery; Accrington Art Gallery; The
Ashmolean; Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool; Bridport
Art Gallery; Derby Art Gallery; Exeter Museum; Fitzwilliam Museum; Glasgow Art
Gallery; Gloucester City Art Gallery; Harrogate Art Gallery; Haworth Art
Gallery; Inverness Library; Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal; Leeds City Art
Gallery; Leicestershire Art Gallery; City Art Gallery, Manchester; New Gallery,
Scotland; Newport Art Gallery; Portsmouth City Museum; Southampton Art Gallery;
Wakefield Art Gallery; York Art Gallery
John Varley
died in London in 1842.