Edward Lear, Mont Blanc.
Signed with monogram and dated ‘1863’ (lower right). Ppencil, watercolour and bodycolour on blue paper. 6 ½ x 10 1⁄8 in. (16.5 x 25.9 cm.)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, London, 15 November 1983, lot 261.
with Agnew’s, London, where purchased by the uncle of the present owner.
Exhibited
London, Agnew’s, 11th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, January-February 1984, no. 184.
Edward Lear, Olive trees, Corfu.
Signed with monogram and inscribed and dated ‘Corfu / December / 17 / 1857’ (lower left); signed inscribed and dated ‘E Lear Corfu December 17 1857’ (lower right). Oil on board. 17 3⁄4 x 21 3⁄4 in. (45.5 x 55.5 cm.)
Provenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 15 July 1992, lot 77, where acquired by the present owner.
Edward Lear, An Olive Grove, Corfu, a sailing boat to the right.
Inscribed and dated ‘Corfu / December 22 / 1857’ (lower left); Inscribed and dated ‘Corfu December 22 1857’ (lower right); and further inscribed and dated ‘1857 / H. M. N. H.’ (on a label attached to the reverse). Oil on board. 18 1⁄2 x 24 in. (47 x 61 cm.)
Prevenance
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 15 July 1992, lot 76, where acquired by the present owner.
Lear first visited Corfu in 1848, and then stayed for a longer visit from December 1855 until May 1857 staying with his friend Franklin Lushington. He returned from Trieste on 1 December 1857 and these two sketches were made shortly thereafter. In an early letter to is sister Anne dated 14 May 1848 he wrote: `I wish I could give you any idea of the beauty of this island – it really is a Paradise … The chief charm is the great variety of the scenery, and the extreme greenness of every place. Such magnificent groves of olives I never saw – they are gigantic’. On Christmas Eve 1857 he again wrote `Perfect calm has been the order of every hour since I came. I finished a drawing of Zante and have sent it off; besides this the 2 paintings for Mrs Empson are all that I have completed, and those 2 not quite’. This and the subsequent lot are in all likelihood the paintings referred to.
Doesn’t much lokk like a Lear to me; for sure the writing for the dating is not his.
Edward Lear, A scarlet-throated tanager in a tree.
Signed ‘E. Lear’ l.c., pencil, watercolour and bodycolour. 18 x 16cm
Provenance
The collection of Mr and Mrs Nigell D’Oyly.
Edward Lear, A black-spotted barbet, c.1830
Signed ‘E. Lear’ l.l., pencil, watercolour and bodycolour. 16 x 14cm, framed oval.
Provenance
The collection of Mr and Mrs Nigell D’Oyly.
Literature
Viven Noakes, ‘Edward Lear 1812-1888 at the Royal Academy of Arts’, 20 April-14 July 1985, illustrated p.80, plate 6a.
This watercolour study was from a group of bird drawings which Lear gave to Mrs Godfrey Wentworth as a token of gratitude in 1830. It is believed that she introduced him to the naturalist Prideaux Selby at the start of his career. It is likely that Lear undertook an informal apprenticeship with Selby, and the bold and lively approach demonstrated in Selby’s ornithological works has been skilfully developed in Lear’s later bird drawings.
Edward Lear, A thick-billed euphonia on a branch.
Signed ‘E. Lear’ l.r., pencil, watercolour and bodycolour. 20 x 15cm
Provenance
The collection of Mr and Mrs Nigell D’Oyly
Edward Lear, A golden-headed manakin in a tree.
Signed ‘E. Lear’ l.r., pencil, watercolour and bodycolour. 20 x 15cm
Provenance
The collection of Mr and Mrs Nigell D’Oyly
Edward Lear, from a sketchbook – a small working sketch, castle view across a lake, later inscribed and dated ‘Lear, 1884, 13.5cm x 18.5cm.
This looks like a Lear sketch, but the signature and date are not in his hand.
Edwqared Lear, On the Road to Galle.
Watercolour, pencil and gum arabic, heightened with white. 40 x 26cm (15½ x 10 in.)
Edward Leara, Askalon, Israel.
Inscribed and dated ‘1.20pm, April 5. 1867’, extensively annotated, pen and ink and wash. 13cm x 51.5cm (5in x 20.25in)
Provenance
Durlacher Brothers, New York;
George Dix Gallery, New York, by 1947;
Childs Gallery, Boston, where acquired by the mother of the current owners.
Exhibited
Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum, (according to the label on reverse);
New York, George Dix Gallery, Edward Lear, December 1947.
A Blog of Bosh 