Irish cars (Study of two carts in a landscape)
Cornelius Varley
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
An inscription at lower left indicates that Varley made this drawing in Ireland. Two hand-carts made out of rough planks rest at different angles in a rural yard near a two-storey building, with small structures roofed in tile and thatch beyond. Pen and ink over graphite has been applied to describe the buildings and landscape, with wash added to detail the carts. Brother to the well-known watercolor teacher John Varley, Cornelius was himself a skilled draftsman and watercolorist, and became known for inventing the Graphic Telescope, an optical device that helped artists achieve correct perspective.
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.