Edward Lear, Wadi Halfa, Sudan
Inscribed and dated ‘Wady Halfeh [sic] / 4.30.PM. Feby 3.1867’ (lower left) and inscribed again and dated [in pencil] (lower left) and numbered ‘(336)’ (lower right) and further inscribed with colour notes. Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour, heightened with touches of white on buff coloured paper. 11 ¾ x 20 7/8 in. (30 x 53 cm.)

Provenance
Ray Livingston Murphy (†); Christie’s, London, 19 November 1985, lot 69, where purchased by the present owner.

Wadi Halfa lies downstream of the Second Cataract, on the modern Sudanese-Egyptian border and the landscape around the area was markedly different from that found further north in Egypt. Lear was fascinated by the contrast and in a letter to Lady Waldegrave he wrote, ‘Nubia delighted me, it isn’t a bit like Egypt, except there’s a river in both. Sad, stern, uncompromising landscape, dark ashypurple lines of hills, piles of granite rocks, fringes of palm …’ (Lady Strachey, Later Letters of Edward Lear to Chichester Fortescue (Lord Carlingford), Lady Waldegrave and Others, published 1911, London, reprinted 1971, Hallandale, p. 66). Further examples of similar views from this series of drawings are in The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (inv. B1997.7.192 and B1997.7.191).

Christie’s.