Stephen Duckworth has completed his webiste on Edward Lear’s travels in the Peloponnese in 1849 with Lushington and Charles Church. The pages have a lange number of pictures, some never before seen and Lear’s journal as transcribed by Church. A missing fragment that was given to Church after Lear’s death and here published for the first time.
Very important new material on a journey which had important consequences on Lear’s career.
Edward Lear, Albenga From the Railway.
Inscribed with colour notes and dated: 6 Sep 1880/ 6.40 pm and with the lines from Tennyson “The day was sloping towards his western bower.” Pen and sepia ink with pencil and touches of watercolour, 7.5 by 12.5 cm.
Provenance
Katherine Hely-Hutchinson; Mrs Ruth Hughes
Edward Lear, View of Mount Athos, Greece.
Pencil and oil on artist’s board. Painting 11 7⁄8 x 18 ½ in. (30.1 x 47 cm.)
Provenance
The artist, by whom given to
Canon C.M. Church.
with Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, where purchased by
Private Collection, until 1968.
Private Collection, until 2017.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 7 December 2017, lot 222, where purchased by the present owner.
Between 1853 and 1868, Lear spent the years travelling throughout the Mediterranean. He had attempted to visit Mount Athos, in 1848 and 1849 with Charles Church, but without success. He eventually arrived there in September 1856, when he spent three weeks travelling throughout the peninsular and managed to visit all twenty principal monasteries and most of their dependencies. The location provided him with the perfect subject matter; medieval architecture perched on the rocks of the Holy Mountain, on stark promontories overlooking the Aegean or sometimes almost hidden among secluded cypress groves and lush vegetation. Lear was received warmly wherever he went and found the landscape and architecture beautiful. He captured the approach to Mount Athos in a letter to his sister Ann, ‘one crosses a ridge of hills, whence Mount Athos is first discovered – a blue peak on a bluer sea – seen above the most wondrous forests of beech I ever beheld. Nothing did I ever behold more lovely than those views’. As he crossed to the isthmus, the path became ‘most toilsome through the wildest and grandest forest scenery – from which every now and then you looked out on such screens and depths of green wood as would astonish those who talk of England as having more trees than other countries’.
Watercolour and gouache over black chalk on paper. 1857.
Edward Lear, Narkunda, [India].
Watercolour study heightened in white – ‘Narkundo’, 29th April 1874, monogrammed lower right, 10cm x 17.5cm, mounted and framed under glass.
Edward Lear, Tor de’Schiavi, Campagna di Roma.
Signed with monogram (lower left). Pencil and watercolour, heightened with white and with scratching out. 7 x 14 ¾ in. (17.8 x 37.5 cm.)
Provenance
The artist, by whom given to Chichester Fortescue, and by descent to his wife,
Frances, Countess Waldegrave, and by descent to her niece,
Constance Strachey (née Braham), and by descent to her niece,
Mary Straw, and by descent to
Richard Strachey, and by descent to the present owner.
Edward Lear, La Cava, Italy.
Signed with monogram (lower right) and inscribed ‘La Cava’ (lower left). Pencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour on paper. 6 ½ x 10 3⁄8 in. (16.5 x 26 cm.)
The highly finished nature and tight monogram of this watercolour identify it as a studio work, rather than an on-the-spot drawing. A pencil drawing of La Cava, dated 20 July 1838, is at the Yale Center for British Art.
Edward Lear, Two views of Thebes.
The first inscribed and dated ‘Thebes & Cithaeron / 3. July. 1848 / (115)’ (lower right), and inscribed with artist’s notes throughout; the second inscribed and dated ‘Thebes / Thiva. / July 4. 1848. (118)’ (lower right), and inscribed with artist’s notes throughout. Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on paper. 6 7⁄8 x 20 in. (17.5 x 50.8 cm.); 6 5⁄8 x 20 in. (16.8 x 50.8 cm.)
Provenance
Charles Church, a gift from the artist, and by descent to the present owners.
Edward Lear, Four vignette studies of birds – a pair of parrots, a flamingo, an avocet and a merganser, each signed ‘E. Lear.’ (lower left). All pencil, with watercolour and bodycolour, two heightened with gold, on paper. two 9 x 7 in. (22.9 x 17.8 cm.); two 7 x 9 in. (17.8 x 22.9 cm.)
Edward Lear, The Gulf of Brolo from near Kokkinomilia.
Inscribed and dated ‘Gulf of Brolo. / from near Kokinomelia. [sic] / 25. June. 1848’ (lower right), numbered ‘(82)’ (lower left), and extensively inscribed with artists notes throughout. Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with touches of white on paper. 13 7⁄8 x 21 in. (35.3 x 53.3 cm.)
Provenance
Charles Church, a gift from the artist, and by descent to the present owners.
Exhibited
London, Fine Art Society, Edward Lear, A Centenary Exhibition, June 1988, no number.
Edward Lear, Plataea, Greece.
inscribed and dated ‘Platoea. [sic]/ 5. July. 1848’ (lower left), and numbered ‘123’ (lower right). Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on paper. 10 1⁄8 x 16 ½ in. (25.8 x 41.9 cm.)
Provenance
Charles Church, a gift from the artist, and by descent to the present owners.
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