On the Thames at Hammersmith

John Varley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Varley's delightfully fresh watercolor describes a Thameside scene on a sunny summer day. It centers on a large tree with spreading limbs and abundant foliage, a semi-rural riverbank beyond lined with unadorned buildings and a chimneyed brickworks. Rapidly applied washes describe a slatted fence silhouetted against sunlit grass and workers pursuing everyday tasks. Deft strokes evoke rushes, flowers and a drinking cow. For most of his career, the artist devoted himself to idealized compositions demonstrating principles that he promoted as a successful drawing master. At this moment, public interest in Varley's formal exhibition pieces had waned, and he felt free to create a group of brilliant studies in Hammersmith and Chiswick, their washy effects showing appreciation for technical innovations introduced by Peter De Wint, one of his most talented students.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art