Harlech Castle

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Wales Office, Gwydyr House, Whitehall

Cornelius Varley, painter, printmaker and draughtsman, was essentially a scientist who practised art for pleasure. He came from a family of artists: his eldest brother John, known for his landscape watercolours, was the most successful; a sister and another brother were also artists, as were children from the next generation. Cornelius invented a type of camera lucida, a device which enabled him to project the image of an object onto a surface and trace it accurately. The image could be enlarged or reduced by varying the distances between object, prism and surface. He exhibited at the Society of Painters in Watercolours, of which he was a founder member, the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists.

Places

Subjects

topography, landscape C19th, mountain, rock formation, man, road, castle

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), pencil, pencil drawing

Artist

Cornelius Varley (1781 - 1873)

Title

Harlech Castle

Date

Medium

Pencil on paper

Dimensions

height: 30.50 cm, width: 47.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Appleby Bros, March 1968

Inscription

ins cl: Sea / Golden [illegible word] / darkest [illegible word] [etc.]; cr: Grey [etc.]; bl: Harlech Castle Wales / The lights of[crossed through] on the castle achieved[?] by the / distant mountains - the castle may be shaded wh[crossed through] with / Lamp Black tho' the general hue is of an olive colour - / The effect on the whole is best when the castle is in shaddow[sic] with gleams of light le[?] hues; br: Water light distance purple / grey warm - sky B + [illegible words] - sand gold / of the ground below be[?] in shade Tone [illegible word] / "[?] of an umberish tone Rock varied in / tone

GAC number

7988