Two Watercolours of Shells by Edward Lear

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

The two watercolours below were on sale on eBay a few weeks ago; according to the label, they were made as “watercolour samples for Gould’s Natural History.”

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eBay.

el_shell2-s

eBay.

el_shells-signature

el_shells-label

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An 1852 Review of “Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria”

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria, &c. By Edward Lear, Author of “Journals of a Lnadscape Painter in Albania,” &c. ―London: Bentley, 1852.

This splendidly got up volume contains a simple but lively and graphic narrative of a tour undertaken by the author through Southern Calabria and through the Basilicata and the adjoining provinces of the kingdom of Naples. Travelling as he did with no other object than to enrich his sketchbook and portfolio, for which purpose he sought out places lying completely out of the track of the ordinary tourist, and being furnished with excellent introductions, he came into constant and close contact with all classes of society, and was thus enabled to give in his journal many details of the social life and manners of the countries he visited, which would probably escape the common traveller. His account fo the state of society in Calabria is peculiarly interesting, from the comparative seclusion in which its injabitants live, and from its being ground untrodden hitherto by English tourists. The ignorance, however, is abundantly reciprocated, at least if we may judge by the various commentaries upon England and English life to which our traveller was doomed to listen, and of which we shall transcribe, by way of specimen; and, for the entertainment of our readers, to that of the Superior of Sta-Maria di Polsi, with all its attendant circumstances: ―

It was nine o’clock eere we arrived before the gate of this remote and singular retreat. It was a long while before we gained admittance; and the Superiore, a most affable old man, having read our letter, offered us all the accomodation in his power, which, as he said, we must needs see was small. Wonder and curiosity overwhelmed the ancient man and his brethren, who were few in number, and clad in black serge dresses. “Why had we come to such a solitary place? No foreigner had ever done so before?” The hospitable father asked a world of questions, and made many comments upon us and upon England in general, for the benefit of his fellow-recluses. “England,” said he, “is a very small place, although thickly inhabited. It is altogether about the third part of the size of the city of Rome. The people are a sort of Christians, though not exactly so. Their priests, and even their Bishops marry, which is incomprehensible, and most ridiculous. The whole place is divided into two equal parts by an arm of the sea, under which there is a great tunnel, so that it is all like one piece of dry land. Ah ― che celebre tunnel!” A supper of hard eggs, salad, and fruit followed in the refectory of the convent, and we were attended by two monstrous watch-dogs, named Assassino and Saraceno, throughout the rest of the evening, when the silence of the long hall, broken only by the whispers of the gliding monk, was very striking. Our bed-rooms were two cells, very high up in the tower of the Convent, with shutters to the unghlazed windows, as a protection against the cold and wind, which were by no means pleasant at this great elevation. Very forlorn, indeed, were the sleeping apartments of Sta. Maria di Polsi, and fearful was the howling of the wind and the roaring of a thunder-storm throughout the night! ― but it was solemn and suggestive, and the very antithesis of life in our own civilized and distant home.

The author’s tour of Calabria was unhappily cut short by the revolutionary movements consequent upon Pio Nono’s sudden and shorlived fir of Liberalism. The tour of the Basilicata has since acquired an additional interest from the desolation caused in the very districts which he visited four years before, by the terrible earthquake of August 14th, 1851, a brief account fo which, from the pen of one of his former hosts, Mr. Lear has appended to his volume. The landscape sketches which accompany the text in rich abundance are of the most striking character and create a great longing to have a further peep at the collection from which they are derived.

[From John Bull, 1663, Saturday, 23 October 1852; pp. 683-684.]

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For more information on the history and condition of Calabria and Basilicata at the time of Edward Lear’s tour, see Il tempo, il viaggio e lo spirito negli inediti di Edward Lear in Calabria by Giuseppe Macrì, Reggio Calabria: Laruffa, 2012: it does not really have much to say about Lear, but its overview of the history of the area is of great interest.

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2014 in review

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Marco Graziosi

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Edward Lear, View of Florence from Villa Petraja (1861)

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

el_florence-s

Edward Lear, View of Florence from Villa Petraja.
Signed with monogram and dated EL /1861 at lower left. Oil on canvas. 
47 x 75.5 cm (18 ½ x 29 ¾ in.).

‘At present I am at work ferociously on the Petraja & I must say it promises well. I worked on the large lemon trees in pots all yesterday, & to-day must fidget over the houses all the long hours. No life is more shocking to me than the sitting motionless like a petrified gorilla as to my body & limbs hour after hour – my hand meanwhile, reck peck pecking at billions of little dots & lines, while my mind is fretting & fuming, through every moment of the weary days work.’ Lear’s letter to his friend Chichester Fortescue, written on 29 August 1861, reports on his progress with his painting of Florence from Villa Petraja. It expresses, with the typically quirky humour for which he is widely known, the painstaking efforts with which he strove to complete his oil paintings to the satisfaction of his clients. By late September he had ‘made the view from Villa Petraja all but a reality’ and by 12 October it was finished (L.E.L., 1907, pp. 189, 196, 199).

The painting of Florence from the gardens of the celebrated Medici Villa La Petraja had been commissioned by the prominent whig-Liberal political hostess Frances, Countess Waldegrave (1821-1879), a staunch supporter of Lear’s and for whom he made six other paintings. Then married to the elderly but well-connected George Harcourt, she was surrounded by younger admirers and the particular focus of the affections of Chichester Fortescue, who had introduced her to Lear.
Lear was in need of change after the death of his beloved eldest sister Ann, who had been a substitute mother to him since his early childhood, and he welcomed the opportunity to travel to Italy.

Reaching Florence in June 1861, he spent that month making sketches, writing in colourful terms to William Holman Hunt: ‘Plumpudding – treacle, weddingcake, sugar, barleysugar, sugar candy, raisins & peppermint drops would not make a more luscious mixture in the culinary world, than Florence & its Val d’Arno does as Landscape’ (cited in V. Noakes, 1979, p. 184). Evidently he had a sweet tooth, as his diary records ‘the usual four ices’ eaten on his way home (cited in P. Levi, 2013, p. 183). Lear had long admired Holman Hunt and had spent a summer in 1852 at Clive Vale Farm near Hastings watching him paint. Although Lear was no longer painting in the open air by the early 1860s, his Villa Petraja has Pre-Raphaelite resonances, particularly in the attention to naturalistic detail in the foreground. This emphasis on local colour often presented him with a problem of transition between near and far in his landscapes, but Lear resolves it here with a weighty bank of trees in the middle ground, providing a magnificent foil to the campaniles and domes of the distant city. Lady Waldegrave was pleased with the painting and when Lear wrote to her with his condolences after the death of her husband he expressed his pleasure that she now had the picture ‘of Petraja where you so lately were together…. It seems to me that in converting memories into tangible facts, recollections & past time as it were into pictures, lies the chief use & charm of a painter’s life’ (5 January 1862, L.E.L., 1907, p. 21).

Daniel Katz Ltd.

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Christmas Holiday Reading Online

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

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Several new books by Edward Lear are now available in full online; of particular interest:

Lear, Edward. A Book of Nonsense. First Edition. London: T. McLean, 1846. [Florida State University Digital Library]

Lear, Edward. A Book of Nonsense. Third Edition. London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1862. [Hathi Trust Digital Library]

Edward Lear’s Journals: A Selection. Edited by Herbert van Thal. New York: Coward-MdCann Inc, 1952 [Hathi Trust Digital Library]

Edward Lear’s Flora Nonsensica. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard College Library, Department of Printing and Graphic Arts, 1963. [Hathi Trust Digital Library]

Lear’s Shilling Book of Nonsense. London: Frederick Warne, [ca.1870] [Hathi Trust Digital Library]

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On Edward Lear and / or Nonsense:

Byrne, Peter. “Il Nonsense tra logica e arte.” Segni e comprensione 2.4 (1988): 18-23. [Università di Salerno]

Ciornei, Ileana-Silvia. “The Nonsense World of Edward Lear.” Language and Literature: European Landmarks of Identity. 10 (2012): 64-68. [Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie]

Sellick, Rob. “The Birds of Edward Lear.” Kunapipi, 34.2 (2012): 113-122. [University of Wollongong]

Carrington, Dorothy. “En 1868, un paysagiste anglais découvre la Corse.” Etudes Corses. Revue trimestrielle. 80.25, 1er trimestre 1960: 38-43. [Gallica]

Also of interest on Gallica: Chauvet, Paul. “L’Angleterre et la Corse.” Revue Anglo-Américaine. 7 (1929): 418-431.

Distaso, Leonardo.”On Satzklang: on the Sense and on the Nonsense.” Aisthesis: Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico. 6.1 (2013): 263-273.

Sze, Gillian. “Sense & Nonsense: Thinking Poetry.” LEARNing Landscapes, 4.1, Autumn 2010.

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Of possible interest:

Woods, David L., E. William Yund and T.J. Herron.”Measuring consonant identification in nonsense syllables, words, and sentences.” Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development. 47.3 (2010): 243–260.

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Review of an Edward Lear Exhibition, from The Tablet (1958)

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

Edward Lear

IT is not only since the advent of Punch that Englishmen have claimed a sense of humour as their monopoly. As long ago as 1673 the Earl of Peterborough wrote of the Duchess of  Modena: “She is really an extraordinary woman, has a great deal of witt and sperritt, and I believe wants not humour if she were in a place where it was the custome.” But the form of humour which depends largely on a combination of puns, phonetic spelling, portmanteau words, cockneyisms, superfluous aspirates and verbal distortions such as “aperiently” for “apparently” was a Victorian phenomenon which dies hard in certain secluded patrician circles.

Edward Lear was not impervious to the fashions of his time nor, perhaps, to the echoes of Rabelais and Swift but the collection of his paintings, drawings, books, prints and manuscripts (which the Arts Council has brought from the Aldeburgh Festival to St. James’s Square) reminds us that his nonsense drawings must have been the prototype of Mr. James Thurber’s and that some of his sentences could easily get lost in Finnegans Wake. As a coiner of words he was more prolific and inventive than Lewis Carroll, and many of his verbal aberrations have a surrealist logic which is exclusively his own. Nonsense was officially a sideline to his chosen occupations of book illustration and landscape painting, in the pursuit of which he travelled extensively. His journeys were no doubt an escape from a form of agoraphobia (though he was not unsociable and had many friends) and a justification for his restless temperament: just as his nonsense was a safety-valve through which escaped much of his irritation with his rather ludicrous appearance (long or large noses and beards are always appearing in the rhymes) his chronic ill-health (he was an asthmatic and suffered from mild epilepsy) and his lack of funds. He was never really poor but, in spite of the friendship of rich patrons, he was continually worried by the insecurity of having no fixed income. Brought up by women, he was conscious of a certain lack of virility. He never married, though after the death of the sister who was largely responsible for his upbringing he often brooded about taking a wife. He refers in middle age to a “nice fat Greek girl” and it is difficult not to identify him with the Yonghy Bonghy Bó and Augusta Bethell, Lord Westbury’s daughter, with the Lady Jingly Jones. Like Lewis Carroll, he seems to have been only on friendly terms with women.

The longer poems seem to me his most memorable works. They often have a lyrical pathos that sets them apart from the limericks which I have never liked, partly because of their hint of childish cruelty (so many of his characters come to sticky ends) and partly because the last line invariably provides an anticlimax. Exceptions may be made for the Old Man of Thermopylae who never did anything properly and for the Young Person of Crete whose toilette (a sack) was far from complete. The illustrations to the limericks are on another level, and I was sorry not to find in the exhibition the Old Man of Blackheath and the Young Person of Bantry. Several of the more celebrated poems may, however, be examined in manuscript, including the “Owl and the Pussy-cat” (differing slightly from the published version) and “The Pobble who has no toes” (also with variations). I would have liked to see more of the nonsense receipts and botany (though Manypeeplia Upsidownia is there) but room had to be found for the journals, landscapes and illustrations of birds and animals.
The oil paintings are not impressive, though some of the drawings and water-colours are of unusual interest. Queer shapes, whether real or invented, fascinated Lear, and in this respect he occasionally looks forward to Wyndham Lewis. More often (as in No. 25) he derives from Towne and other eighteenth century votaries of the picturesque. An original note can be detected in such exhibits as Nos. 18, 19, 21, 42 and 59. In the lithograph numbered 97 he has suggested the markings on a tortoiseshell by scraping black paint off the stone—a technique which was not commonplace in the 1830’s. The zoological illustrations are careful and sensitive and loving and competent but not unique of their kind.

Perhaps it is as a personality that we should remember him — the Compleat Eccentric in an age of eccentrics, everybody’s uncle and the most cheerful of grumblers. We can forgive him his exasperation at the number of conversions to Rome and at Cardinal Manning’s “atrocious sermons . . . to which nevertheless, all heaps of fools go.”

WINEFRIDE WILSON.

The Tablet. The International Catholic News Weekly. Vol. 212, No. 6164. 12 July 1958, p. 8. [Available online here.]

[The exhibition reviewed here had originally been at The Eleventh Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, 12-22 June 1958; a Complete Programme Book. 95[3]pp., was printed by Benham and Company in Colchester, 1958.

The number cited at the end of the article presumably refer to the catalogue: Edward Lear, 1812-1888; an exhibition of oil paintings, water-colours and drawings, books and prints, manuscripts, photographs and records. 64pp. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1958. Marco.]

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Lear Drawings at King’s School, Canterbury

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

[In 2012, the King’s School in Canterbury held a bicentenary exhibition of its holdings of Edward Lear watercolours, part of an album of drawings donated by Hugh Walpole in 1938. Most of these works had already been presented by Charles Nugent in the two publications cited in the “Further Reading” section below.

Here is the short catalogue that was printed for the occasion; it was given to me by Peter Henderson, Walpole Librarian at the King’s School, Canterbury, when I visited the library in March of 2014. Marco.]

EDWARD LEAR DRAWINGS

A Bicentenary Exhibition

Edward Lear was born in Holloway on 12 May 1812. A largely self-taught artist, he began his career drawing animals and birds. His Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae or Parrots was published in 1830-32. He also did illustrations for The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle and for John Gould’s The Birds of Europe.

Lear probably first went to the Lake District in around 1830, when he was invited by Edward Stanley, later 13th Earl of Derby, to draw the animals in the menagerie at Knowsley Hall, Lancashire. In 1835, 1836 and 1837 he went on tours of the Lakes and began drawing landscapes. These journeys were the subject of an exhibition ‒ Edward Lear the Landscape Artist ‒ curated by Charles Nugent at the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere in 2009. The School’s seven Lake District drawings were exhibited there. Lear drawings of English scenes are rare.

In 1837 Lear left England for Italy and for the next dozen years he was largely based in Rome. He particularly appreciated the beauty of the Campagna, but he also visited much of central and southern Italy as well as Sicily. The School’s four Italian drawings probably date from this period. He returned to England twice, taking the opportunity to publish Views in Rome and its Environs in 1841 and Illustrated Excursions in Italy in 1846. His first Book of Nonsense appeared pseudonymously in 1846. He also gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria.

From 1849 to 1853 Lear was in England. He enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy, and also had painting lessons from Holman Hunt. He then returned to Italy and for the rest of his life he lived abroad with just the occasional summer visit to England. He travelled extensively in the Mediterranean, with one trip to India. He was a prolific artist, leaving nearly 10,000 drawings and watercolours as well as some 300 oil paintings. He published several more books illustrating his travels, and set some of Tennyson’s poems to music. He died at San Remo in 1888.

The School’s Lear drawings came in an album presented by Hugh Walpole in 1938 as part of the Walpole Collection. There are nineteen landscape sketches in pencil and watercolour, dated between 1835 and 1845, though some of the pictures are not by Lear, but probably by his pupils. This is the first time these twelve pictures by Lear have been displayed in Canterbury.

KING’S WEEK 2012
Admissions Office, Lardergate
Exhibition open during office hours

THE LAKE DISTRICT 1835-37:

LATHOM 1835:

1. THE CHAPEL AND SCHOOL, LATHOM, LANCASHIRE.

Inscribed: ‘Lathom 17 Sept. 1835’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. The Chantry Chapel had been founded by the Earl of Derby in 1500 and consecrated in 1509. The priest’s house was demolished in the eighteenth century and was replaced by a school. Nugent (2009), no. 31.

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2.  LATHOM HOUSE, LANCASHIRE.

Inscribed: ‘Lathom. Sept 18. 1835.’ Pencil and black chalk on blue-grey paper. Lathom was the property of Lord Skelmersdale, father-in-law of Edward Stanley, later 14th Earl of Derby. The house was built in Palladian style by Giacomo Leoni for Sir Thomas Bootle c1740. The main house was demolished in 1925. Nugent (2009), no. 30.

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LEVENS HALL AND KENDAL 1836:

3. STUDY OF AN INTERIOR AT LEVENS HALL AND STUDIES OF FIGURES.

Inscribed: ‘Levens Aug 18 1836’, and ‘Kendal 20th Aug’. Pencil. Lear drew very few interiors, though there is another drawing of a Levens interior in the British Museum. Nugent (2009), no. 35.

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4. THE NORTH FRONT, LEVENS HALL, CUMBRIA.

Inscribed ‘Levens. Aug. 19. 1836’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. Levens was the largest Elizabethan house in Cumbria. It was the home of Col. the Hon. Fulke Greville Howard and his wife Mary. Lear described it as “perhaps the finest existing specimen of an antique house”. Nugent (2009), no. 36.

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ALDERLEY 1837:

5. ST MARY’S CHURCH, NETHER ALDERLEY, CHESHIRE.

Inscribed: ‘Alderley Church 2d of June 1837 4 A.M. most dreadfully cold’, and ‘No. 1’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. Lear stayed at Knowsley in May on his final visit before departing for Italy. Nugent (2009), no. 96.

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6. THE SKELETON OAK, ALDERLEY PARK, CHESHIRE.

Inscribed ‘Alderley June 3. 1837.’; ‘5 A.M. Cold – drizzly.’; ‘The Skeleton Oak’; and signed ‘Edward Lear del.’ Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. The finished drawing is in the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester. Lear made several studies of trees in Alderley Park for the Stanley family. Nugent (2009), no. 97.

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7. NINE LAKE DISTRICT VIEWS.

Pencil and black chalk. The views are from West Cumberland and include Pikes Crag, Wasdale Hall and Wastwater. Versions of four of the scenes in the thumbnails have survived and were exhibited at Dove Cottage (nos. 42, 43, 44 and 47). These original drawings date from September 1836, so this composition was probably produced soon afterwards. This type of image is unique in Lear’s work. Nugent (2009), no. 45.

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SCOTLAND 1841:

8. A DISTANT VIEW OF TAYMOUTH CASTLE, PERTHSHIRE.

Pencil and black chalk, on buff paper. This preliminary sketch is annotated, in characteristic Lear fashion, ‘stream’, ‘beech’, ‘ash’, ‘wood’, etc. Lear visited Scotland in September 1841 with Phipps Hornby and this view was presumably drawn on that occasion.

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ITALY 1837-1845:

9. HOUSE IN ITALY.

Inscribed: ‘E Lear del. 1837’. Pencil and black chalk with white heightening on orange paper. Lear left England in July 1837 and after a journey through Germany arrived in Italy in September. From Milan he went on a walking tour of Como and Lugano, visited Florence, and arrived in Rome in December. This view has not been identified.

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10. SANT’ IONA.

Inscribed ‘Sant’ Iona’ and ‘E. Lear 1845’. Pencil and black chalk on grey paper. Sant’ Iona is in the Abruzzi, a mountainous region to the East of Rome. In early 1845 Lear went on a sketching tour in the Campagna with Chichester Fortescue, later Lord Carlingford. He then left Rome in April to return to England.

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ITALIAN SCENE.

Inscribed: ‘E.L.’ Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening on blue paper. This view is probably in the Campagna, where Lear found “the beauty and the grandeur that he most wanted to paint… [with] gnarled olive trees and rhythmical lines of hills disappearing into wide, distant horizons” (Vivien Noakes). It may well be from the same period as no. 12.

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12. ITALIAN SCENE.

Pencil and black chalk on blue paper. In one of his earliest letters from Rome in December 1837, Lear commented on “the long lines of aqueducts and tombs on the desolate and beautiful Campagna”. Several Lear drawings and watercolours of Roman aqueducts survive. This is probably from the same period as no. 11.

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Further Reading

Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer (1968; revised and enlarged 2004)

Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888 (1985). Royal Academy exhibition catalogue.

Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear: Selected Letters (1988)

Charles Nugent, ‘Some unpublished drawings by Edward Lear of British subjects’, British Art Journal, Vol. VIII, no. 1 (2007), pp. 24-9

Charles Nugent, Edward Lear: the Landscape Artist (2009): nos. 30, 31, 35, 36, 45, 96 and 97.

Previous King’s Week exhibitions

1972                Prints and Drawings of the School

1974                Somerset Maugham’s Schooldays

1975-77          Prints and Drawings of the School

1978                William Harvey 1578-1978

1985                Michael Powell, Carol Reed and Charles Frend: OKS Film Directors

1993                Marlowe and his Successors

1994                Walter Pater’s Schooldays

1996                William Morris

1997                A King’s School Tapestry: 597-1997

1998                Hugh Walpole and the Walpole Collection

1999                Fin de Siècle

2000                Passing Tales: Some Literary Pilgrims

2001                Fifty Years of King’s Week

2002                The School Library: A Tercentenary Exhibition

2005                Michael Powell: A Life in Movies

2008                Jocelyn Brooke Centenary

2010                Jimmy James: the Great Escaper

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Bev Skilton, Kate Harrison and Claudia Upton of the Admissions Office for hosting the exhibition; to Peter Whitehead and Sarah Stanley for mounting the drawings; to Hawkswells for the picture frames; and to Charles Nugent, who first recognised the importance of the album.

[The following is a list of the drawings in the album, including those that cannot be attributed to Edward Lear; this was also given to me by Peter Henderson. Marco.]

EDWARD LEAR: drawings and watercolours.

 The items are listed in the order in which they are bound in this volume.

 

  1. Nine Lake District views. 14 × 23 cm. Pencil and black chalk. The views include Pikes Crag, Wasdale Hall and Wastwater. Nugent (2009) no. 45.
  2. [not EL] Tower. 23 × 15.3 cm
  3. Study of an interior at Levens Hall and studies of figures. 15.5 × 23 cm. Inscribed: ‘Levens Aug 18 1836’, and ‘Kendal 20th Aug’. Pencil and black chalk. Nugent (2009) no. 35.
  4. The Chapel and School, Lathom, Lancashire. 17.3 × 26 cm. Inscribed: ‘Lathom 17 Sept. 1835’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. Nugent (2009) no. 31.
  5. St Mary’s Church, Nether Alderley, Cheshire. 16.7 × 25.3 cm. Inscribed: ‘Alderley Church 2d of June 1837 4 A.M. most dreadfully cold’, and ‘No. 1’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. Nugent (2009) no. 96.
  6. Sant’ Iona. 8.3 × 13.7 cm. Inscribed ‘Sant’ Iona’, and signed ‘E. Lear 1845’.
  7. The Skeleton Oak, Alderley Park, Cheshire. 25.3 × 16.7 cm. Inscribed Alderley June 3. 1837.’; ‘5 A.M. Cold – drizzly.’; ‘The Skeleton Oak’; and signed ‘Edward Lear del.’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. The finished drawing is in the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, D.1981.1. Nugent (2009) no. 97.
  8. Lathom House, Lancashire. 17.5 × 25.8 cm. Inscribed: ‘Lathom. Sept 18. 1835.’ Pencil and black chalk on blue-grey paper. Nugent (2009) no. 30.
  9. [not EL] 20.5 × 25.8 cm. Inscribed ‘from the Wimberry above pen-ma..’
  10. [not EL] Tree. 25.5 × 20.8 cm.
  11. House in Italy. 20 × 28.8 cm. Inscribed: ‘E Lear del. 1837’.
  12. [not EL] Tivoli. 27 × 21.5 cm. (Image 19 × 13.2 cm.)
  13. [not EL] Trees. 28.5 × 22 cm. Inscribed: ‘Gozzinni del.’ (or ‘Gorzini, or ‘Gornissi’??)
  14. [possibly EL] Rhine scene. 22.7 × 30 cm. (Image 16.7 × 25.5 cm.)
  15. Campagna scene. 24.5 × 29.8 cm. × (Image 17 × 25.4 cm.)
  16. Italian scene. 24.2 × 30 cm. (Image 17 × 26 cm.) Inscribed: ‘E.L.’
  17. [not EL] Unknown view. 25.7 × 27.2 cm.
  18. A distant view of Taymouth Castle, Perthshire. 25.5 × 35.2 cm. Pencil and black chalk, on buff paper.
  19. The North Front, Levens Hall, Cumbria. 25.5 × 36 cm. Inscribed ‘8’, and ‘Levens. Aug. 19. 1836’. Pencil and black chalk with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper. Nugent (2009) no. 36.

Charles Nugent, ‘Some unpublished drawings by Edward Lear of British subjects’, British Art Journal Vol. VIII, no. 1, pp. 24-28, describes and illustrates nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 18 and 19.

Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 19 were exhibited at Dove Cottage in 2009; see Charles Nugent, Edward Lear: the Landscape Artist (2009): nos. 30, 31, 35, 36, 45, 96 and 97.

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Edward Lear, A View of Menton from across the Bay

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, A view of Menton from across the bay.
Signed with monogram (lower right). Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour. 16.5 x 26cm (6 1/2 x 10 1/4in).

Lear had moved to Nice in November 1864 where he began work on 240 of what he termed his ‘Tyrants’. These were systematically worked up watercolours, taken from sketches and painted simultaneously in a production line method. They were sold relatively cheaply at around 10 guineas and although they are an achievement in terms of workload and inventiveness their varying quality and formulaic approach have been criticised.

After this herculean effort, Lear set out on foot and painted around the coast of the Corniche for a month, capturing the beautiful scenery of the coast from Nice to Menton. The present and following lot would seem to date from this time and show his focus on the detail in the middle distance with the rocky foregrounds left understated and the dramatic hills plunging into the Mediterranean.

Bonhams.

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Edward Lear, The Valley of Jehosaphat with Jerusalem Beyond

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, The Valley of Jehosaphat with Jerusalem beyond.
Signed with monogram (lower right). Watercolour and bodycolour. 9.5 x 19.5cm (3 3/4 x 7 11/16in).

Edward Lear travelled to Jerusalem from Corfu and arrived on 27 March 1858. His diary records his travels outside the walls of the city, ‘We crossed the Kidron and went up the Mount of Olives – every step bringing fresh beauty to the city uprising behind’ (Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1985, p.149).

Lear went on to camp for a week on the Mount of Olives making studies and preparatory drawings of the view of Jerusalem in April/May 1858 for a commission from Lady Waldegrave. He worked these up into many successful compositions such as View of Jerusalem, 1858 (Tate Britain). The present lot shows a view of the Valley of Jehosaphat, with Jerusalem on the left with Temple Mount just visible and Absolom’s Pillar in the central middle distance. Lear was particularly interested in the light at dawn and evening, the simple colour scheme of gold, green and purple working to excellent effect. He wrote, ‘just at sunrise the view of the city is most lovely…all gold and white beyond the dark fig and olive trees’. (Vivien Noakes, The Painter Edward Lear, David & Charles, London, 1991, p.72).

Bonhams.

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Edward Lear, Dhows on the Nile at Sunset (1853)

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Marco Graziosi

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Edward Lear, Dhows on the Nile at sunset.
Inscribed and dated ‘4pm 31 December 1853’ (lower left). Watercolour, pen and ink. 9.5 x 23cm (3 3/4 x 9 1/16i.

Bonhams.

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