A Blog of Bosh

Edward Lear, Akroteri from Khanea, Crete.
Dated ’10 AM 17 April 1864′ (lower left), numbered ‘(14)’ and inscribed ‘from Khanea’  (lower right); extensively inscribed with colour notes throughout. Pen, ink and watercolour, heightened with touches of white, 16 x 37.5cm (6 1/4 x 14 3/4in).

Provenance
Private collection.
Professor R. M. Dawkins.
Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 30 November 1955, including ‘A Collection of Mediterranean Views by Edward Lear from the estate of Prof. R.M. Dawkins MA, DLitt, FBA, Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature in the University of Oxford,’ lot 54, as Cape Tripiti from Chanea (one of 42 Cretan drawings from the estate of Professor Dawkins)
With Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd.
Colonel L. F. Smeathman, 1956.
Private collection, UK (acquired by the grandfather of the present owner).

Literature
Yale Centre for British Art, 2018, list of works by Lear, written in Lear’s hand and that of his executor, Franklin Lushington, no. 12.
Fani-Maria Tsigakou, 1977. M. Phil. thesis, p. 526, pl. 334.

Bonhams.

Edward Lear, Parnassus.
Pen, ink, pencil and wash – “Parnassus, 12 April 1849, 11 A.M.” – Mount Parnassus from Near Thebes – a study of an extensive landscape, with figures, some on horseback, inscribed, dated and numbered 159, 11.25ins x 19ins, in modern gilt frame and glazed.

In 1849 Lear decided to return to Greece in order to produce a book. He and his companion Lushington arrived in Patras on 9th March 1849. From there they moved on to the Morea Coranth, Athens,Thebes, Parnassus and Delphi finishing their tour in Patras once again following six weeks of walking and sketching.

Provenance
Dover College, Dover, Kent.

With handwritten note, which reads: “List of old Argonauts and Hellenic travellers who have joined in this gift to Canon Compton, the “Father” of the “Schoolmaster Crusades”, and a two column list of fifty-three names.

Dover College was founded in 1871 by a group of local businessmen. In 1892, the Reverend William Cookworthy Compton succeeded Canon William Bell as Headmaster. Ahead of his time, Compton helped organise schoolmasters’ and student tours in Greece alongside Henry Lunn, later of Lunn Poly fame. It led to the establishment of ‘Hellenic Travellers’ Club’ which had an associated camera club calling themselves the Argonauts.

The Saleroom.