Bray Church Yard (1807): Art, History and Details

Bray Church Yard (1807) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is John Varley (British, 1778–1842).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The inscription on the reverse of this drawing, "Bray Church Yard-1807," likely refers to St. Michael’s, the parish church in the village of Bray on the banks of the Thames in the county of Berkshire. The banks of the lower Thames Valley provided the subject matter for many of John Varley’s early watercolors. His pursuit of the picturesque led the artist to turn his back on London and its connotations of commerce and industry, focusing instead on the rural aspects of the scene.

Object facts

• Title: Bray Church Yard
• Date: 1807
• Creator attribution: John Varley (British, 1778–1842)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor and graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 24.9 x 36.9 cm (9 13/16 x 14 1/2 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1940.564

A detail from the museum

Although rare, John Varley's early watercolors are considered his most inspired work.

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry S. "The Bequest of James Parmelee: Department of Paintings." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 2 (1941): 15-31.
• Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.