Edward Lear, A landscape study with figures wearing fez hats, from a sketchbook, depicting the site of the former khan of Valaré (Albanian Valarë).
Inscribed and dated ‘Ruins of Han [sic] Valarè / April (1?) 1857’ (lower right) and with artist’s annotations. Pencil and watercolour on paper. 12 x 19cm.
On 2nd April 1857, Lear set out from Corfu on a three-week tour of Albania and Greece, arriving at the harbour of Tre Scoglie (today’s Ksamil). Lear’s diary for 1857 is no longer extant and the account of his journey is only known from a letter to his sister Ann, dated 23rd April 1857, the day he returned to Corfu. According to the letter, Lear had made 98 drawings on his travels, of which only about a third have been located.
The present study depicts the site of the former khan of Valaré (Albanian Valarë), which Lear visited on 19th April 1857.
The watercolour is loosely attached to card that is inscribed in later hand ‘Ruins of Hase Valiere [sic] Albania’.
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