John Varley (painter)

His mother was an alleged descendant of the regicide Oliver Cromwell through the marriage of his daughter, Bridget, and the Parliamentarian soldier and politician General Charles Fleetwood.

In 1798 he exhibited a highly regarded sketch of Peterborough Cathedral at the Royal Academy and became a regular exhibitor at the RA until the foundation of the Old Watercolour Society in 1805.

He also became a highly successful drawing master, his pupils including Copley Fielding, David Cox, John Linnell and William Turner (artist) of Oxford.

[2] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Varley's landscapes are graceful and solemn in feeling, and simple and broad in treatment, being worked with a full brush and pure fresh transparent tints, usually without any admixture of body-colour.

Some of his earlier water-colours, including his "Views of the Thames," were painted upon the spot, and possess greater individuality than his later productions, which are mainly compositions of mountain and lake scenery, produced without direct reference to nature.