A distant view of Harlech Castle, North Wales

Cornelius Varley (1781-1873)
A distant view of Harlech Castle, North Wales

Pencil on wove paper watermarked 1801/ WHATMAN
23.8 by 37.8cm., 9 ¼ by 14 ¾ inches

This is one of a group of drawings by Varley on Whatman paper dated 1801 and of this size which Varley mainly used on his 1803 trip to North Wales (see Peter Bower, `A material pleasant to work on': Cornelius Varley's Use of Paper', essay in Cornelius Varley - The Art of Observation, Lowell Libson exhibition catalogue 2005, p.51). Cornelius Varley visited North Wales in 1802 with his brother John and the architect Thomas Webster and again in 1803 in the company of Joshua Cristall. Varley also used this batch of Whatman paper on his 1802 tour but the confidence of the handling in the present work suggests a date of 1803 is more likely.

Other drawings from 1803 on the same paper including `A View from Cader Idris from the Path to Pistyll Cain', and `A View of Cader Idris' (Libson exhibition catalogue, nos. 26 and 29).

We are grateful to Peter Bower for his help in cataloguing this drawing

Provenance:
Private Collection until 2006