Cader Idris, Snowdonia, Wales

John Varley was apprenticed to a silversmith, but his real love was drawing. He became a pupil and assistant of Joseph Charles Barrow at the age of fifteen or sixteen, alongside François Louis Francia.
Varley’s first tour to Wales in 1798 or 1799 was central to his development as an artist, providing him with inspiration and subject matter for the rest of his life. Shortly after this tour he became acquainted with Dr Thomas Monro (see lot 66), and began to attend his ‘academy’ at Adelphi Terrace from 1800, alongside Thomas Girtin and J.M.W. Turner. By 1801 he is recorded as taking pupils, and he made another tour of North Wales in 1802. He also became a member of the Sketching Society, chaired by John Sell Cotman, to draw subjects of literary inspiration.
As C.M. Kauffmann noted, Varley's early work may be divided into three groups: topographical views of English and Welsh towns, Welsh landscapes, and more informal studies from nature (see C.M. Kauffmann, John Varley, London, 1984, pp. 23-24). Each of these categories is represented in this collection. The topographical views show the influence of Thomas Hearne (whose work was copied at Monro’s academy) in their picturesque rows of houses receding down a central street. The Welsh landscapes, largely mountain views, are the subjects to which he returned throughout his career. Topographically accurate, they follow William Gilpin’s advice on adapting nature to the requirements of the composition. The third category consisted of informal landscape studies, often using unbroken layers of wash with sharp edges, producing an ethereal effect which looks modern today.
Varley was a prominent founder of the Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1804, and continued to be the society’s most prolific exhibitor until 1812, with his watercolours being bought by prominent collectors including Walter Fawkes, Lord Essex, Edward Lascelles and others.
He taught many of the next generation of watercolourists whose work is represented in the present collection, notably John Linnell, William Henry Hunt, William Turner of Oxford, Copley Fielding, David Cox and Peter De Wint. His approach as a teacher was hands-off, allowing his pupils to draw from nature. He was one of the masters of English watercolour painting, and his influence is frequently in evidence throughout the rest of this collection.
Varley must have visited Cader Idris and Dolgellau (Dolgelly) on his first trip to Wales, as he exhibited a View of Dolgelly at the Royal Academy in 1800. The subject of Cader Idris, on the southern margin of Snowdonia, seems to have been a lasting source of interest to Varley: between 1801 and 1819 he exhibited thirteen views of Cader Idris at the Royal Academy and the Society of Painters in Water Colours.
The present drawing with its subtly graduated layers of wash gives a sense of the awe of the mountains, whilst the barely realised figures in the mid-ground give a sense of scale.