Watercolor and graphite on medium, moderately textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 11 3/8 x 14 7/8 inches (28.9 x 37.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in graphite lower left: "[ . . . ]"; inscribed on back in black chalk upper left: "1< . . . >/8/1 1/8"; in graphite upper center: "The Thame<...>"; in pen and black ink upper right: "[ . . .]< . . . >"; in graphite center: "Vauxhall Bridg<...> | <...>arley. | Atlas"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)
Publications:
Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 126-27, no. 54, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Varley's early motto was "Go to Nature for Everything," and by 1809 he was already famous as an advocate of outdoor sketching. One writer recorded that he "passes many days in the summer and autumnal months, in making accurate studies of the boats, barges, punts, eel pots, fishing nets, and anchors used by fishermen upon the Thames." Varley worked on these Thames-side views from 1806 until around 1835, covering the river from Windsor down to Greenwich. This view of Vauxhall appears conventionally picturesque but captures London in a period of transformation. Just as Varley was making this watercolor, in 1816, a new iron bridge across the Thames-the first erected in London-was completed. This bridge can be seen in the background and points towards a new era of modernity as the rural suburbs were swallowed up by the metropolis. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)