Edward Lear, Ravenna.
Watercolour sketch, ‘Ravenna 10.30 AM May 5 1867’, marked in pencil verso. 16.4cm x 24.9cm.
Lear is known to have done another, almost from the same spot (different light), which was sold at Bonhams lot 71 on the 9 June 2015. The present picture shows Lear’s man servant Giorgio and this one also has sketching instructions and the same date, style and brown ink writing, with the time of 10.30am (the Bonhams example ‘8 am’ and sold for £3750)
Edward Lear, The Colossi of Memnon.
Pen, coloured ink and coloured wash. Inscribed and dated ‘Thebes, 20 Feb 1854’ (lower right), colour notes throughout. 11 x 32.5cm (4¼ x 12¾ in.)
Edward Lear travelled to Egypt in 1854, following the Nile south. During his travels he was astonished by the beauty of the landscapes and the villages, which he described as ‘fairy islands’, each of which capable ‘enough to occupy an artist for months’. Albeit in his letters he lamented about the difficulty of painting, for ‘the colours dry fast, and sand injures them,’ the climate did not stop him analysing and painting what he saw; when informing his elder sister Ann about his daily routine he wrote: ‘I have been at work every day throughout the whole daylight, and so charming is the place and the climate that I shall be very sorry to leave it’.
Edward Lear, El Kab, Egypt.
Pen, ink, and watercolour, heightened with white. Inscribed with title and dated ’13 Feb 1854′ (lower left), colour notes throughout. 20 x 33.5cm (7¾ x 13 in.)
Provenance
Leger Galleries, London, November 1970
Edward Lear travelled to Egypt in 1854, following the Nile south. During his travels he was astonished by the beauty of the landscapes and the villages, which he described as ‘fairy islands’, each of which capable ‘enough to occupy an artist for months’. Albeit in his letters he lamented about the difficulty of painting, for ‘the colours dry fast, and sand injures them,’ the climate did not stop him analysing and painting what he saw; when informing his elder sister Ann about his daily routine he wrote: ‘I have been at work every day throughout the whole daylight, and so charming is the place and the climate that I shall be very sorry to leave it’.
Edward Lear, ‘Ravello, 9 June 1844’.
Pen and ink, 16 x 12cm, mounted but unframed.
Lear was in the area on Ravello on this date, evidenced by other works from June 1844 including pen sketch of Amalfi inscribed and dated ‘Amalfihi/8. June. 1844’ sold Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 21 March 2017, lot 15. Harvard University hold a sketch undertaken at Positano dated 12 June 1844.
Edward Lear, Èze, Southern France.
Watercolor and bodycolor, heightened with white and gum arabic. 122 by 186 mm; 4⅞ by 7⅜ in.
A few weeks ago, kind Dough Harris sent me an extract from a book he recently acquired.
Here is how he describes it:
An interesting matchbox-styled booklet dropped through my letterbox today. Supposedly part of the ‘Safety [or Safest – see both sides of the box below] Series for Children’ (though I can find no other part of any series).
In 1863, Joseph Causton and his son, also named Joseph, developed the printing company which was to become the large and well known Joseph Causton and Sons Limited.
In 1867 the company was described as being a wholesale stationer and printer with a large warehouse at Southwark Street, London.
Joseph Causton was also a politician. He became a Councillor for Billingsgate, East London in 1868 and Sheriff for London and Middlesex in 1868. The pinnacle of his career came when Queen Victoria opened Blackfriars Bridge and Holborn Viaduct in 1869 and he was knighted at Windsor Castle to mark the event. The company name now became Sir Joseph Causton and Sons Limited. Sir Joseph died just two years later, but his sons, Joseph, Richard, and James, continued as partners of the firm.
The company moved to a large new printing works in Eastleigh, Hampshire in the 1930s. The printing works made labels for household brands including Marmite and Guiness. During The Second World War they printed secret maps for the Government in a specially bricked off part of the building.
By the end of the 1960s Sir Joseph Causton and Sons Limited fortunes were in decline. In the mid 1970s the company was losing money but it was not until 1984 that the firm was taken over by Norton Opex. They in turn were acquired by Bowater and Sir Joseph Causton and Sons ceased trading.
The Causton name has survived only as Causton Envelopes Ltd. and Causton Cartons, which is a subsidiary of the Bowater Group, manufacturing cartons for the pharmaceutical industry.
Credit for info gathered to Mark Matlach.The publisher appears to be ‘Grant Richards‘ – based upon his propensity for miniature books: at least one of which shared the services of Jessie Pope the verse writer for London Characters.
Illustrations are by the celebrated illustrator and poster artist John Hassall
There are three characters in all who merit limerick verse celebration as per the photos here:
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.
A Blog of Bosh 