View of Polesden Lacey from the South
John Varley the elder (Hackney 1778 - London 1842)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
circa 1825
Materials
Watercolour on paper
Measurements
254 x 356 mm
Place of origin
Polesden Lacey
Order this imageCollection
Polesden Lacey, Surrey
NT 1246674
Summary
Watercolour on paper, View of Polesden Lacey from the South by John Varley the elder (Hackney 1778 - London 1842), circa 1825. John Varley first visited Polesden Lacey with Dr Thomas Monro in 1800.The present watercolour dates from a much later visit (see Kauffmann, p.18, n.7) and shows the house designed by Thomas Cubitt for Joseph Bonsor, thus dating it to 1823 or after. It shows the house from the south, with Polesden Farm, with a rather unusual crinkle-crankle chimney on the farmhouse, in the foreground. Varley was a founding member of the Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1804, and a significant early 19th-century artist. His representation of the original villa at Polesden built by Thomas Cubitt in 1816 is a key image of the property. A view of Polesden Lacey from the south, the house visible in the middle distance; a lane runs towards the house from the foreground, along which walk a figure and a dog; in the right foreground is Polesden Farm, separated from the fields in the middle distance by a bank of trees; in the foreground are three figures and fowl on the grass by the side of the path.
Provenance
Sotheby's 19th March, 1970, lot 156, bought Leger Galleries; Private collection, London; purchased for the National Trust from John Spink at The British Antique Dealers’ Association Fair, London 5 March 2008 (22)
Makers and roles
John Varley the elder (Hackney 1778 - London 1842), artist
References
Kauffmann 1984 C. M. Kauffmann, John Varley 1778–1842, London, 1984, p. 18, no. 7