A Blog of Bosh

Edward Lear, Aswan, Egypt.
Inscribed and dated ‘Assouan 9. Feb 1854 9.10AM’ and further inscribed with colour notes throughout, pen and ink and watercolour. 24.25cm x 43.75cm (9.5in x 17.25in).

Provenance
Agnew’s, no. 28008

During his second visit to Egypt Lear arrived in Cairo in December 1953. From there, he travelled up the Nile for several months, writing to his sister ‘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.’ However, his unusually extensive colour notes from this period show the difficulties Lear experienced depicting the Nile scenery: ‘Egypt is at least a land to learn colour in.’ Lear travelled as far as Philae near Aswan before beginning his return journey on 8 February. A week later his boat arrived at Luxor and there he spent ten days exploring Karnak and the ruined temples at Thebes.

Lyon & Turnbull.

Edward Lear, Sunset of the Nile.
Signed with monogram and inscribed ‘Nile’, watercolour. 17cm x 36.5cm (6.75in x 13.5in).

Provenance
Agnew’s, London, no.48070

At the end of his journey along the Nile, Lear writes on 25 February 1867 ‘In no place – it seems to me, can the variety & simplicity of colours be so well studied as in Egypt; in no place are the various beauties of shadow more observable, or more interminably numerous’

Lyon & Turnbull.

Edward Lear, Sunset on the Nile near Mankabat.
Inscribed and dated ‘5.20 sunset Jan 8 1867 (near Mankabat)’ and numbered ‘107’ and further inscribed with colour notes throughout, pen and ink and watercolour. 12.5cm x 19cm (5in x 7.5in).

Provenance
Colnaghi, London

This drawing can be compared with the watercolour titled Near Gan el Kebir and dated 9 January 1867 at the Yale Centre for British Art (inv.no.B1997.7.105). Both drawings were executed when Lear was travelling on the river Nile near the town Asyut, around 200 miles south of Cairo.

Lyon & Trumbull.

Edward Lear, Wady halfeh, Egypt.
Signed with the monogram, dated 1884 and inscribed ‘Wady Halfey Feb 3 1867’, watercolour. 9cm x 17.5cm (3.5in x 7in) .

Provenance
Childs Gallery, Boston;
Agnew’s London No. 15361

This work shows Wadi Halfa situated on the shore of Lake Nubia (Lake Nasser) on the present-day Sudanese-Egyptian border. Lear was particularly interested in the stark contrast between the landscape in Lower Egypt and Nubia writing in a letter to Lady Waldegrave ‘Nubia delighted me, it isn’t a bit like Egypt… Sad, stern, uncompromising landscape – dark ashy purple lines of hills, piles of granite rocks, fringes of palm, and ever and anon astonishing ruins of oldest temples.’

Lyon & Trumbull.