Cornelius Varley (1791-1873) was the second eldest of five talented siblings. The best known of these, his brother John, was a renowned artist who worked with both William Blake and John Constable. Cornelius was also a gifted artist, but spent much of his life working as a maker of scientific instruments. During his lifetime these two areas of craftsmanship were not far removed from one another: many artists considered themselves to be examining nature using observational techniques that were just as valid as the techniques of contemporary naturalists. Furthermore, artistic skills have often been necessary in science, for example, when recording what is seen through a microscope or telescope.
Varley himself linked the two disciplines by inventing an optical aid for artists called the graphic telescope. His drawings and paintings are now in the collections of, among others, Tate Britain, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
