Watercolor with pen and brown ink over graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, beige wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 2 1/2 × 10 inches (6.4 × 25.4 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
inscribed in brown ink, lower left: "Sheikh Abadeh. 3.15 PM. Jany 6. 1867"; in brown ink, lower right: "(84)"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Donald C. Gallup, Yale BA 1934, PhD 1939
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1997.7.93
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
sky | palm trees | water | river | river | buildings | dome | landscape | boats | minaret
Associated Places:
Egypt | Sheikh-'Ibada | Africa | Nile
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Edward Lear and the Art of Travel (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-09-20 - 2001-01-14)
Publications:
The lure of the east : British Orientalist painting: wall labels, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. [86], V 2577 (YCBA) V 2577The lure of the East, British orientalist painting, 1830-1925 , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 17, V 1879 (YCBA)Scott Wilcox, Edward Lear and the art of travel, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2000, p. 83, no. 63, NJ18 L455 W55 2000 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Lear wrote in his diary that Sheikh Abadeh "seemed extremely beautiful—for luxuriousness of palms, and 2 mosque towers . . . O, City of Adrian! I can’t describe what it is, but there is a great charm about this same Antinöopolis.—The walk to Melaus was more interesting agriculturally than otherwise: such tracts of sugar cane! And a steam working engine which grunts and whistles as it might do at Kings Cross. A friend and fellow artist described how, when Lear came to a “good subject,” he would “lift his spectacles, and gaze for several minutes at the scene through a monocular glass he always carried; then, laying down the glass, and adjusting his spectacles, he would put on paper the view before us . . . with a rapidity and accuracy that inspired me with awestruck admiration.” Some of these drawings were made only five minutes apart. Lear referred to them as “penning out” and inscribed them with notes to aid him later when laying in the colors. Gallery label for Lure of the East - British Orientalist Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-02-07 - 2008-04-28)