Clipped signature beneath an albumen print, circa 1860, clipped signature ‘Yrs. sincerely, Edward Lear’ in brown ink, mount aperture 3.3 x 5.5 cm, with albumen print of a seated Edward Lear with entourage in front of an encampment, mount aperture 20 x 28 cm, with another similar albumen print of Lear displayed to verso, framed and glazed, frame 38.5 x 45 cm.
The photograph might have been taken during Edward Lear’s trip to Petra.
Here is the whole framed item:
Edward Lear, View of Cairo, with the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx in the distance, 1849.
Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour, heightened. 6 ¾ x 20 in. (17.2 x 50.9 cm.)
Edward Lear, Mont Blanc.
Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour on blue paper. 6 ½ x 10 1⁄8 in. (16.5 x 25.9 cm.)
Edward Lear, River landscape, Naqadeh (Iran)
Inscribed ‘Naqadeh 11AM 21 Jans 1854’ and numbered 108, watercolour, 6 x 15.5cm.
Provenance
with Ryman & Co Ltd, Oxford
Edward Lear, View on the Nile, Dishne.
Inscribed ‘Near Dishne, 5.10PM Feby 27.1867’, and numbered 558, watercolour, 6 x 17cm.
Provenance
with Ryman & Co Ltd, Oxford.
Edward Lear, Jerusalem from near the Mount of Olives, 1858.
Pen and brown ink and watercolour. Works on Paper. 214 by 320 mm
Edward Lear, View of Cairo, with the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx in the distance.
Inscribed and dated ‘Cairo / 9. Jany . 1849.’ (lower left), further inscribed, dated and numbered ‘Cairo. Jany 9. 1849. 2’ (lower right), and further variously inscribed with the artist’s notes throughout. Pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour, heightened with touches of bodycolour, on paper. 6 ¾ x 20 in. (17.2 x 50.9 cm.)
Lear first visited Egypt in January 1849, writing to Fortescue ‘I strongly long to go to Egypt for the next winter as ever is, if so be as I can find a sufficiency of tin to allow of my passing 4 or 5 months there. I am quite crazy about Memphis & On & Isis & crocodiles and ophthalmia & nubians, and simooms & sorcerers & sphingidoe. Seriously the contemplation of Egypt must fill the mind, the artistic mind I mean, with great food for the rumination of long years.’ (Lady Strachey, The Letters of Edward Lear, London, 1907, pp. 8-9.)
His first visit was brief and he saw only Cairo and the Pyramids, before travelling on in early February to Sinai and Palestine by camel, with his friend John Cross.
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.
