This carefully plotted landscape was made by Cornelius Varley with the aid of his Patent Graphic Telescope. The view was made in Caernarfon North Wales, but rather than showing the usual picturesque view of the massive defensive castle which dominates the entrance to the harbour, Varley has concentrated instead on a small, twin masted vessel in the harbour itself, capturing the complex mass of rooves of warehouses and houses behind the ship. The drawing demonstrates the power of Varley’s optical device, by making sense of the apparently featureless townscape.
Cornelius Varley did not begin his life as a painter, thanks to the influence of his uncle, Samuel Varley, a watchmaker, jeweller, and natural philosopher, Cornelius began by making lenses and microscopes and assisted his uncle in chemical experiments. When his uncle founded the Chemical and Philosophical Society at Hatton House in 1794 – one of the forerunners of the Royal Institution – Varley assisted with his public lectures. In 1800, however, Samuel Varley gave up his own business and the Hatton House lectures to work for Charles, third Earl Stanhope, and Cornelius Varley determined to become an artist like his elder brother. Instead of undergoing another apprenticeship, he taught himself by sketching from nature in the company of his brother John with whom he lived at Charles Street, Covent Garden. John introduced Cornelius to the influential patron of watercolour artists, Thomas Monro.
The meticulously made drawing shows Varley’s interest in the problems presented by capturing the three-dimensional world on paper. This composition relies on a careful system of perspective, showing the various buildings complexly and heavily foreshortened and it is certain Varley used the graphic telescope he invented in 1809 and patented in 1811.
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