Edward Lear’s 1838 Stay in Amalfi

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Above is a page from the Guest Book of Albergo Cappuccini in Amalfi. In the upper half are the signatures of Edward Lear and James Uwins, “Pittori Inglesi. Contentissime. 3. weeks. 18. July. 1838” (English Painters. Very Satisfied. 3 weeks. 18. July.1838).

It is from an exhibition catalogue, Alla ricerca del Sud: Tre secoli di viaggi ad Amalfi nell’immaginario europeo. Edited by Dieter Richter. Scandicci: La Nuova Italia, 1989. 132.

Achille Vianelli, Sant'Arcangelo di Cava.

Achille Vianelli, Sant’Arcangelo di Cava. Here.

Interestingly, just after Lear and Uwin’s entry is one for two Italian painters, belonging to the School of Posillipo (Italian): Achille Vianelli (Italian) and Ercole Gigante (1815-1860), the latter a member of an artistic dynasty began by his father Gaetano and continued by three more siblings: Emilia, Achille and, of particular interest, Giacinto. The Italians’ opinion was also extremely postitive: “Sempre contentissimi di padroni. Li 22 Luglio 1838 -” (Always very satisfied with the owners. On 22 July 1838). Impossible to think that the two groups did not get to know each other.

Ercole Gigante, Vista del mare dai Cappuccini.

Ercole Gigante, Vista del mare dai Cappuccini [the hotel?]. Here.

Of Giacinto Gigante, whose style strongly influenced Ercole’s, Peter Levi writes (Edward Lear: A Biography. New York & London: Scribner, 1995. 81):

His [Lear’s] Neapolitan contemporary (1806-1876), Giacinto Gigante of the ‘school of Posillipo’, knew Craven and Gell, and some of his landscapes have a striking resemblance to mature Lears, the subjects being alike, and the rocky foreground with the asphodels, the light on a pair of stone pines, the distant cliff: but Gigante is not as meticulous as Lear became.

The catalogue was kindly sent to me by the Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana, and it can also be freely downloaded here. Though it is richly illustrated, there are no reproductions of paintings by Edward Lear, but next year the Centro will produce a book with over 100 pictures drawn by Lear during his visits to the Amalfi area in 1838 and 1844.

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Edward Lear to Lady Rawlinson

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

An 1866 advertising circular Edward Lear sent to Lady Rawlinson (wife of Sir Henry Rawlinson), enclosing an alphabet “towards the education of [her] son” (unfortunately not included) and two photographs, one of which, Lear painting in his studio, I do not remember ever seeing. The letter is interesting as it shows that Lear was very interested in the preservation of his productions for individual children. I do not know whether the alphabet has been preserved, however.

Also included is a pencil portrait of a bearded man in profile: this does not much look like Lear, in my opinion.

The letter is for sale here. The description, including a full transcript of the letter is below.

EDWARDLEAR11

EDWARDLEAR31

EDWARDLEAR41

EDWARDLEAR51

EDWARD LEAR Autograph Letter Signed

English artist, illustrator, author and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.

ALS. 2pp. 15 Stratford Place, Oxford Street, W. June 18th 1866. To “Dear Lady Rawlinson”. Together with two contemporary carte de visite portrait photographs of Edward Lear and a pencil sketch possibly by his hand.

“The accompanying Alphabet is an offering towards the education of your son, of which I beg you to accept. I made his acquaintance at Knoyle last Autumn, when you and Sir Henry Rawlinson were absent from home.

I think – if the Alphabet is worth keeping – it will be worth pasting on coarse Holland, the edges of which may be bound round with a blue or red binding, when the whole may be stitched with one volume, presenting a cheerful appearance to the youthful mind and preserving the contents from sudden and total destruction by the youthful fingers.

I was sorry to find Mrs. Seymour was poorly when I called a few days back.”

The letter is integral to a printed sheet with an announcement of an exhibition of Lear’s Views in Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Greece, Sicily, Italy, etc, at his studios.

Together with two carte de visite photographs of Edward Lear (one by L. Caldesi & Co showing him painting in his studio and the other a vignette portrait by McLean Melhuish & Haes).  Together with a pencil sketch from the same album leaf on which these items were mounted showing a bearded, balding gentleman (who resembles Lear himself) with an undeciphered name or signature below and dated 1865 Jany 30.  The sketch is possibly by Edward Lear or of him.  The letter is torn along fold between the two leaves and with some creasing and mounting traces on verso of the printed leaf. Both photographs are fine. The drawing has some browning to bottom edge, offsetting from a mounting on an opposite page of the album and mounting traces on the verso.

From a 19th century album compiled by Maj.-Gen. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810-1895) and his wife, Louisa Caroline Harcourt Rawlinson (nee Seymour). Sir Henry Rawlinson was a British politician and orientalist, sometimes described as the Father of Assyriology.

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Edward Lear, Pamvotis Lake

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, Pamvotis Lake looking towards Aslan Pasha Mosque, Ioannina.
Watercolour and gouache over pencil. 16.5 x 26cm (6 1/2 x 10 1/4in).

Bonhams.

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Edward Lear, Ponte della Maddalena

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, Ponte delle Maddalena, Bagni di Lucca.
Signed with monogram (lower left). Watercolour. 16 x 25.5cm (6 5/16 x 10 1/16in).

Bonhams.

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An Edward Lear Unpublished Alphabet

Posted on July 20, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

The alphabet had already been sold at a Christie’s auction in New York in 2005; it was made by Edward Lear between 27 February and 1 March 1858 for Ida Nea Shakespear (also see 2 March).

ida-ab-1 ida-ab-2 ida-ab-3

Sotheby’s catalogue entry for the sale in London on 4 June 2015:

AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT FOR A PICTORIAL NONSENSE ALPHABET, 26 SEPARATE LEAVES, EACH WITH PEN AND INK LETTER FOLLOWED BY DRAWING AND VERSE BENEATH, C. 1857.

folio (323 x 196mm.), written on blue paper with watermarks “Joynson” or crowned oval with Poseidon at centre, each sheet backed with contemporary linen, additional sheets at the end to form an album, containing three ink-wash sketches on two leaves of a duck and her young, a rabbit, and a goat and her young, and with six hand-coloured oval portrait etchings of children, these last sheets watermarked “Smith & Meynier Fiume”, contemporary half roan, marbled boards, quarter red morocco folding box, some slight spotting and occasional discoloration to some drawings, edges of binding worn, spine rubbed and partially defective.

PROVENANCE

Ida Nea Shakespear, signature on flyleaf; by descent to Dr. I. F. Bohm, sale at Sotheby’s London, 20 April 1971, lot 543, where purchased by John Fleming (a copy of letter from Sotheby’s to Fleming discussing the provenance is loosely inserted); Norman and Cynthia Armour Collection, their sale, Christie’s New York, 27 April 2005, lot 94

LITERATURE

Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear 1812–1888, Royal Academy of Arts, 1985 (cf. 81a, b, c, and d, partial alphabets from the collections at the Houghton Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum)

CATALOGUE NOTE

ONE OF LEAR’S TYPICALLY DELIGHTFUL ‘NONSENSE ALPHABETS’, a number of which the author/artist composed for children up until 1870. Lear drew this particular alphabet during his stay in Corfu and presented it to Ida Nea Shakespear (Ida Nea’s name appears in highly speculative nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century accounts of the playwright’s descendants: see, for instance, Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, Shakespeare’s Family: a Record of the Ancestors and Descendants of William Shakespeare, 1901). The drawings and verses are similar to others which have appeared at auction and which Lear published. See, for example Christie’s, 29 May 1986, lot 203, and another one in these rooms on 22 July 1980, lot 401. Two printed examples can be found in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets.

Lear visited Corfu on several occasions, first in 1848, moving there from Italy when the political situation became difficult. He set out on his next trip in November 1854, accompanied by his friend Franklin Lushington, who had recently been appointed judge at the Supreme Court of Justice in the Ionian Islands. His third trip to Corfu was over the winter of 1857. Other trips there were made in 1861, 1862, 1864 and 1877. According to Vivien Noakes, Lear made a number of these wonderful alphabets for children up to 1870 (Edward Lear 1812-1888, London, 1985, p. 173).
“Despite his loneliness…Lear was a sought-after and convivial companion, with a wide circle of acquaintance and many real friends who remained trusted and supportive…Children responded to his tall, shambling, bearded, bespectacled figure with warmth and happiness, and he treated them with humorous understanding and respect…” (Oxford DNB)

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Edward Lear, Porto Tre Scoglie, Albania

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, Porto Tre Scoglie, Albania.
Oil on canvas. 13 x 20 ¾ in. (33 x 52.8 cm.)

This view was made by Lear in April 1857 on a short trip to Trescogli (modern Ksamili) to the north of Butrint in Albania. Lear sailed from Corfu where he had taken a house for the winter. Butrint was an ancient Greek and later Roman city, now under excavation. ‘We were off on the 2nd April in Lushington’s boat Midge – I taking George, the canteen or box of cooking things, my bed, paper for drawing, etc., & Edwards taking his servant, Fillipo (a Maltese). We had a perfectly quiet passage across of only 3 hours & anchored in the little harbour of Trescogli – enjoying all the afternoon on making drawings – below the tall white heath all in bloom – & comfortable dinner & quiet night’ (Edward Lear, The Corfu Years, Athens and Dedham, 1988, p. 108). The trip was taken with James Bevan Edwards (1834-1922), later a senior British army officer and politician, who was the son of Samuel Price Edwards, a keen patron of Lear’s whose collection of works included Corfu, from Ascension (1859, sold in these Rooms on 16 December 2015, lot 128), Petra, The Theatre (1859), Turin (1862) and Jerusalem (1862, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).

Lear made his first expedition to Albania between September and November 1848, an area that few foreigners had ever explored. He found the area fascinating: ‘You have majestic cliff-girt shores; castle-crowned heights, and gloomy fortresses; palaces glittering with gilding and paint; mountain-passes such as you encounter in the snowy regions of Switzerland; deep bays, and blue seas with bright, calm isles, resting on the horizon; meadows and grassy knolls; convents and villages; olive-clothed slopes, and snow-capped mountain peaks; – and with all this a crowded variety of costume and pictorial incident such as bewilders and delights an artist at each step he takes’ (E. Lear, Journals of a Landscape Painter in Albania, London, 1851, pp. 4-5).

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Christie’s.

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Edward Lear, Mount Lebanon (1866)

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, Mount Lebanon.
Signed with monogram (lower right). Oil on canvas, in the artist’s original frame. 15 ¼ x 27 5/8 in. (39 x 70 cm.) Painted in 1866.

Leaving Jerusalem in 1858, Lear travelled to Lebanon, arriving in Beirut on 11 May. ‘This place’ he wrote to his sister Ann on 14 May 1858, ‘is quite different from anything in southern Palestine – & reminds me more of Naples by its numerous villas & gardens, & the civil & gay people. I was only looking about me yesterday, but today I shall make a drawing of Mt. Lebanon, & the Bay & town – which are really lovely as a whole…’ A few weeks later, in a letter to his friend and patron Lady Waldegrave, he noted that that ‘all the Lebanon Country is safe & pleasant…the higher portions of Lebanon, i.e. the outer side – recall Etna’ (27 May 1858).

The horizontal layout of the painting is emphasised in Lear’s carefully considered composition, filled with an astounding depth of colour and light, with the rocky promontory looming out of the foreground leading the eye across the azure water to the city at the base of the luminous mountain.

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Christie’s.

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Edward Lear, View of the Citadel, Corfu

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, View of the Citadel, Corfu, with an orange grove in the foreground.
Signed ‘E. Lear’ (lower right). Oil on canvas. 19 x 30 in. (48.3 x 76.2 cm.)

Lear first visited Corfu in 1848. He returned in the winter of 1855-6 and effectively made the island his home until 1864. The artist was obsessed by the island’s beauty from his first visit. In April 1848 he wrote: ‘This afternoon I have been wandering all about & nothing can be more lovely than the views; I never saw more enchanting. The extreme gardeny verdure, the fine olives, cypresses, almonds, & oranges, make the landscape so rich, & the Albanian mountains are wonderfully fine’. He could have been describing the view portrayed here, seen from the hillside above the village of Ascension, now Analypsis, with the Citadel of Corfu and the mountains of Albania seen in the distance. The village was Lear’s particular favourite, and the view from its environs was the subject of some fifteen pictures. As he wrote in a letter to his sister Ann on 25 December 1855 ‘Oh! If you had but seen the day here! Perfectly cloudless, warm & sunny, & with every orange & myrtle & olive tree alive with sunshine, & all the bright snow hills on the other side of the water pink & lilac & blue!’. It is probable that this picture was worked up from sketches executed in 1856-7. It is certainly datable to before 1861 when Lear started using his monogram.

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Christie’s.

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Edward Lear, In the Campagna (1844)

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, In the Campagna, Rome.
Signed ‘Edwd Lear’ (lower left) and dated ‘1844’ (lower right). Oil on canvas. 9 ¾ x 18 1/8 in. (24.8 x 46 cm.)

The Roman Campagna was a place that Lear often returned to in the course of his travels having been captivated by ‘the long lines of acqueducts [sic] and tombs on the desolate and beautiful Campagna’ (E. Lear, Letter to his sister Ann, 14 December 1837). On a later visit he wrote that ‘there is a charm about this Campagna when it becomes all purple & gold, which it is difficult to tear one’s self from. Thus-climate & beauty of atmosphere regain their hold on the mind-pen & pencil’ (E. Lear, Letter to Ann, 27 March 1848).

A watercolour by Lear of the same view (including the small settlement to the right) is inscribed and dated ‘Campagna di Roma/Feby 17.1844’. It was in the collection of the banker John Scandrett Harford (1787-1866) and was passed down in his family until 2015 (now with Guy Peppiatt Fine Art).

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in preparing this catalogue entry.

Christie’s.

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Edward Lear, A View near Gheneh (1884)

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, A view near Gheneh, Egypt.
Signed with monogram and dated ‘1884’ (lower right) and inscribed and dated ‘near Gheneh. 25 Feby. 1867.’ (lower left) and further inscribed ’50 NEAR Gkeneh’ (verso). Pencil and watercolour heightened with white. 3 ¾ x 7 ¼ in. (9.5 x 18.4 cm.)

The sketch for the present watercolour was begun near the end of Lear’s trip along the Nile, as the date of 25 February attests. The day before, he had been at Karnac recording the architecture and surroundings. By contrast, here, Lear’s interest is in capturing the Egyptian way of life. The present watercolour demonstrates the artist’s enduring fascination with the ‘magnificent river, with endless villages – hundreds & hundreds on its banks, all fringed with palms, & reflected in the water… [and the] boats which look like giant moths’ . (V. Noakes, Letters of Edward Lear, London, p. 122).

Christie’s.

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