Edward Lear, Sepolcro di Terone, Sicily, Italy.
Inscribed, dated and numbered ‘Sepolero di Terone Gigenti 29 May 1847 (63)’ and further inscribed with notes throughout, pencil, pen and ink. 8.25cm x 25.5cm (3.25in x 10.25in).
Leaving Rome in April 1847, Lear travelled south together with John Proby (1780-1855), subsequently 2nd Earl of Carysfort. They stayed in Sicily from the 3rd of May to 19th of July, as a result of which a volume containing twenty Nonsense drawings of their adventures on the island was published in 1938 as Lear in Sicily. At the end of May they were in Agrigento, the city founded by Greek colonists in about 580 BC, and from there Lear wrote to his sister ‘Nothing of earth can be so beautiful as Girgenti with its 6 Temples — I speak of the old town — & the flowers & birds are beyond imagination lovely. I must however, need say that the gnats, fleas, flies, wasps, etc. etc.— require much philosophy to bear’.
The Tomb of Theron is located in the Valley of the Temples and dates from the 1st century BC. Theron (died 473 BC), son of Aenesidemus, was a Greek tyrant of the town of Acragas from 488 BC.
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