Edward Lear, View of Tivoli.
Indistinctly inscribed and dated ‘Tivoli May 7 …183.'(lower left). Pencil and grey wash heightened with white on light grey paper. 7 1/8 x 10 in. (18.2 x 25.4 cm.).

With financial backing from Lord Derby, Lear set out for Italy in the summer of 1837. For most of the next ten years Lear wintered in Rome and toured other parts of Italy during the summer. This visit to Tivoli is referred to by Lear in a letter dated 3rd May 1838 to his sister Ann; ‘I, and Uwins and Mr Acland set off on Saturday – staying some days at many beautiful places all (of) which I will tell you about. I must now describe my dear Tivoli as I promised the height of landscape perfection’ (V. Noakes, Edward Lear, Selected Letters, Oxford, 1988, p. 41). ‘Mr. Acland’ (Leopold Dyke Acland) was one of Lear’s travelling companions who after Tivoli went on to the Bay of Naples in the summer of 1838. Later Acland joined Lear for a tour of Sicily in the spring of 1842. Leopold was the son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland , tenth baronet (1787-1871), a politician and philanthropist.

Christie’s.