CORNELIUS

See also:

• CORNELIUS VARLEY (1781-1873)
• VARLEY, JOHN (1778-1842)

VARLEY (1781-1873)  , English water-colour painter, a younger brother of John Varley (q.v.), was born at Hackney, London, on the 21st of November 1781 . He was educated by his uncle, a philosophical instrument maker, and under him acquired a knowledge of the natural sciences; but about 1800 he joined his brother in a tour through Wales, and began the study of art . He was soon engaged in teaching drawing . From 1803 till 1859 he was an occasional exhibitor in the Royal Academy; and he also contributed regularly to the displays of the Water-Colour Society, of which, in 1803, he was one of the founders, and of which he continued a member till 1821 . His works consist mainly of carefully finished classical subjects, with architecture and figures . He published a series of etchings of " Boats and other Craft on the River Thames," and during his life as an artist he continued deeply interested in scientific pursuits . For his improvements in the camera lucida, the camera obscura and the microscope he received the Isis gold medal of the Society of Arts; and at the International Exhibition of 1851 he gained a medal for his invention of the graphic telescope . He died at Hampstead on the 2nd of October 1873 .