Lot Essay
This watercolour was drawn on Lear's third and final visit to Egypt, December 1866 until March 1867. He wrote to Chichester Fortescue on 11th December 1866 'My objects on the Nile are (excepting to draw Denderah on the lower river) wholly above Philae..' (see Lady Strachey, ed., Later letters of Edward Lear, London 1911, p.80). Dendera is about 40 miles downstream from Luxor. The Temple of Dendera, ancient Tentyra, was dedicated to Hathor, the cow goddess and sister of Isis, and is one of the finest surviving Egyptian temples. It was built in the 1st century B.C. under the later Ptolemies and the Emperor Augustus. Lear did a drawing of the half-buried pylon of the temple the next morning, at 9.15am. on 16 January; this is numbered '176' (sold in these Rooms 19 November 1985, lot 65, illustrated (2,052).