Edward Lear, View of Janina.
Watercolour and pastel. 29 x 45.5cm (11 7/16 x 17 15/16in).
Provenance
With J. Leger & Son, London, 1959 (as Janina, Turkey).
Private collection, UK.
Ioannina (or Janina) which lies on Lake Pamvotis is part of modern day Greece, the major city of the province of Epirus. When Lear visited in 1848 it formed part of Albania but the area had been surrendered to the Ottomans in 1430 and remained under their rule until the early 20th century. One of the most recognisable landmarks of the town is the minaret and dome of the Fethiye Mosque which houses the tomb of Ali Pasha (1740-1822), ruler of the Pashlik of Ioannina. When in his 80s, his views and actions brought growing disapproval from the Ottomans who arrested him in 1822 at the St Panteleimon monastery on Lake Pamvotis, and killed him (see lot 11 for a portrait of Ali Pasha). The mosque and minaret, silhouetted on a promontory that extends into the lake, are at the very centre of Lear’s composition in this watercolour.
In 1848 Lear embarked on an impromptu sketching tour of Albania and Greece which took him from Salonica in the north, westwards to Corfu and down to Mount Olympus. He travelled very much off the beaten track with his manservant Giorgio, staying mostly at simple roadside khans where he regularly shared his quarters with farm animals. In luckier moments he enjoyed the hospitality of Turkish pashas or Greek dragomen. In his diary for 5 November 1848 he describes his dramatic approach to Ioannina: ‘..amid rolling thunder and flashing lightning did I gallop on, across the treeless level, till the sky cleared suddenly, and … I saw from a slight eminence the lake of Yannina [sic] unexpectedly spread below me……There lay the peninsula stretching far into the dark grey water, with its mosque, its cypress tufts, and fortress walls; there was the city stretching far and wide along the water’s edge; there was the fatal island, the closing scene of the history of the once all-powerful Ali.’ He stayed in unaccustomed luxury at the British Consulate, remarking ‘After the khans and horrors of upper Albania, the spacious and clean rooms at the Vice-Consulate were delightful to repose in; and newspapers, letters, joined with all kinds of comfort, suddenly and amply atoned for all by-gone toils and disagreeables.’
A similar view by Lear, taken from a point closer to the town, is in the Derby Collection at Knowsley.
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