John Varley was born at the ‘Old Blue Post Tavern’ at Hackney on 17 August 1778. He was the eldest of five children. His father, Richard Varley, was born at Epworth in Lincolnshire and had settled in London, after the death of his first wife. For a brief time, John was employed by a portrait painter in Holborn and then, at the age of 15, became a pupil of Joseph Charles Barrow, who held an evening drawing school twice a week at 12 Furnival’s Inn Court, Holborn. It was Barrow who took Varley on a sketching tour to Peterborough, from which the youngster emerged as a professional painter. In 1798 he exhibited a well-received sketch View of Peterborough Cathedral at the RA, becoming a regular exhibitor there, until the foundation of the Old Watercolour Society in 1805. Varley was one of the most sought-after drawing masters of his age and the author of several drawing manuals. He ran a boisterous drawing school in London and his students included David Cox, John Dobson, Copley Fielding, William Henry Hunt, John Linnell,  James Sant, William Turner of Oxford and William Mulready, who married his eldest sister. Oftentimes, the day’s work would end, the boxing gloves would come out and the elephantine Varley would invariably be bested by his nimbler pupils, especially Mulready, who was particularly adept in the pugilistic arts. Varley’s motto was, ‘Go to Nature for everything’. He would write: ‘The true exercise of art consists in contrasting the round with the square, the light with the dark, the hard with the soft, the far with the near.’ He published A Treatise on the Principles of Landscape Drawing, 1816-21 and A Practical Treatise on the Art of Drawing in Perspective. Throughout his career, Varley worked primarily in watercolour. His first exhibited work was a View of Peterborough Cathedral (1798). In between sketching expeditions to Wales (1798 or 1799, 1800 and 1802) and Yorkshire (1803) he produced topographical views of towns – particularly of half-timbered buildings in Hereford, Leominster, Conway, and Chester – drawn in the picturesque idiom of the late 18th century. From 1800 until as late as 1820, he attended evening classes at Dr Monro’s ‘Academy’ in London and also visited Monro’s cottage at Fetcham in Surrey. In company with him, he painted the watercolour View from Polsden, Surrey (1800), which demonstrates the influence of Girtin. Varley toured Northumberland in 1808, that area providing him with subject matter for his watercolours for several years. Most notable of his works from that tour is Holy Island Castle (1808). His watercolour Suburbs of an Ancient City (1808) is an outstanding example of early 19th-century exhibition watercolour. On a large scale and with its grandiose, Poussinesque composition, classical buildings and monumental figures, it perfectly summarises the aspirations of heroic, classical and literary themes. Varley was a believer in judicial astrology and was aware of the work of the Swiss physiognomist Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801), who argued that man’s inherent moral and intellectual powers determine his outward appearance. However, unlike Lavater, Varley believed the influence of the heavens at the moment of birth to be chiefly responsible for mankind’s differing characteristics and temperaments. In 1828 he published the first and only part of his Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy: Illustrated by Engravings of Heads and Features; and Accompanied by Tables of the Time of Rising of the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac; and Containing … Astrological Explanations of Some Remarkable Portions of Ancient Mythological History. The work was illustrated by his friend the artist and mystic William Blake. On one occasion, Varley foretold that on a certain day, he would be in danger from water, due to the influence of Aquarius. He resolved  not to venture out of the house that day; but, going downstairs, fell over a bucket of water and broke his shins. Linnell used to say that, in consequence of the accident, Varley used ever afterwards to wear tin leggings. Varley seems to have been equally clever at reading people’s destiny from their hands, palmistry also having been one of the ‘sciences’ he cultivated. Amongst his friends was Mr (afterwards Sir) Augustus Wall Callcott, RA; and once, when they and several others, including Mulready, met at Callcott’s house, Varley proposed to cast the latter’s horoscope. Callcott gave him the necessary particulars, and a few days subsequently, Varley gave Mulready a sealed envelope, and asked him to take charge of it and produce it on Callcott’s forty-eighth birthday, as something eventful would happen that day. Mulready had forgotten about the horoscope incident, but took charge of the document. Sixteen years later, on Callcott’s forty-eighth birthday, whilst seated at the latter’s wedding-breakfast – for he happened to be married on that day – Mulready was asked to produce the sealed envelope, and read what it contained. He did so, and to the astonishment of everybody present, the document predicted that Mr Callcott would be married on his forty-eighth birthday, and that immediately after his marriage he would go abroad. The second item in the prediction was no less true than the first, for he and his wife (the widow of Captain Graham, RN) went abroad to spend their honeymoon, and stayed on the Continent a couple of years. That striking prediction greatly redounded to Varley’s fame as a reader of the stars. He is also said also to have foretold the death of William Collins, RA, to the very day. His later life had its share of woe. By all accounts, a poor businessman, Varley was in and out of prison for debt, burdened by eight children and his first wife Esther Gisborne, who despised him (she died in 1824). To cap it all, his studio burned down in 1825. However, he finally found the happiness he sought in this world with his marriage to Delvalle Lowry (who was half his age). Varley died on 17 November 1842. His work is well-represented at the V&A and the British Museum. Four of his landscapes may be found in the collection of the Courtauld Institute in London and three in the British Government Art Collection.