Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Cornelius Varley 1781–1873
- Medium
- Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 200 × 238 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1973
- Reference
- T01710
Catalogue entry
Cornelius Varley 1781–1873
T01710 Evening at Llanberis, North Wales 1805
Inscribed ‘Evening at Llanberris C. Varley 1805’ at bottom.
Watercolour, 7¿ x 9¿ (20 x 23.8).
Purchased from P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd (Grant-in-Aid) 1973.
Coll: By descent from the artist to B. Fleetwood-Walker, R.A.; Mr & Mrs G.L.V. Walker; P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd.
Exh: Colnaghi, February–March 1973 (5).
Made on Varley’s third visit to Wales. In an autobiographical document he wrote: ‘In 1805 I travelled to North Wales quite alone, for the whole season was so rainy that in most places I was the only traveller. This apparent solitude mid clouds & mountains left me more at large “To hold converse with Natures Charms & view her stores untold.” Having been familiar with the known Electrical experiments I was better prepared & more at liberty to observe and understand what I saw.’ As on his previous visit in 1803, he wrote detailed descriptions of atmospheric phenomena, including a long note on ‘the gradual progress from a cloudless morning to universal rain’ in the region of Snowdon. This and other extracts from ‘Cornelius Varley’s Narrative written by Himself’ are given in the catalogue of the exhibition referred to above, which included further mountain and sky studies made at Llanberis in 1805 (e.g. Nos.14, 33).
Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1972–1974, London 1975.
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