The precocious son of a Bloomsbury frame maker, John Linnell entered the Royal Academy schools in 1805 at the same time that he began studying with influential watercolor painter and drawing master John Varley (1778-1842). Under Varley's tutelage, but primarily in the company of fellow student William Mulready (1786-1863), Linnell mastered plein-air landscape painting. His studies at the Kensingto