Edward Lear, Agia Paraskevi, Epirus, Greece
Inscribed in Greek and dated ‘Ayia… 13.April.1857.’ (lower right) and variously inscribed with colour notes ‘Nightingales/dim roar below’ and further numbered and inscribed ‘137./Longwise.alone’ (on the verso). Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on paper. 12 7/8 x 20 1/8 in. (32.8 x 51.1 cm.).
Lear had first visited Epirus and Albania in 1848-9. On 2 April 1857 he left Corfu for another tour, returning on 23 April. As the artist’s notes on the drawing indicate, the area was dominated by the continuous ‘dim roar’ of the water in the gorge below. This region was difficult to penetrate, but, as Lear found, the drama of its landscape amply repaid the effort. A drawing of a nearby section of the gorge made on 12 April (the day before this one) was in Agnew’s 127th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings in 2000, no. 82. The artist’s fingerprints are clearly visible in the washes near the top left and top right corners of this drawing.
Edward Lear, The Plain of Damascus
Inscribed with colour notes and further inscribed ’21. night’ (on the reverse). Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on paper
13¾ x 18 1/8 in. (35 x 46.1 cm.).
Edward Lear travelled in Palestine, then Lebanon and Syria for three months in the spring of 1858. The sculptor Thomas Woolner (1825-1892) considered his Holy Land drawings ‘the most beautiful things he has ever done not only for the mystery and history attached to the places themselves but also for the excessive fineness, tenderness and beauty of the art displayed in them’ (letter of 22 October 1858, quoted in V. Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, 1985, p. 112). Towards the end of May 1858 he was at Damascus, executing drawings for a panoramic oil that was painted in England in 1860-61.
Boston Sunday Post, 31 August 1913.
Edward Lear, An extensive view of Damascus.
Numbered ‘(221)’ (lower right) and further inscribed with colour notes
pencil, pen and brown ink and grey and blue wash, heightened with white on paper, unframed. 13¾ x 21½ in. (35 x 54.6 cm.).
A very early example of a Verbeek newspaper comic strip, probably recycled from his 1890s French production, the date is 2 December 1900. Notice the signature as VerBeck:
Edward Lear, The market square, Coblenz, Germany.
Partially inscribed and dated ‘[Co]blenz. 1837./August 12.’ (upper left). Pencil heightened with touches of white on blue-grey paper, the corners cut. 6 5/8 x 10 1/8 in. (16.8 x 25.7 cm.).
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