Lear went to Italy for the first time in 1837 and stayed there for the next decade apart from two visits to England. He used to spend the winter months in Rome, and it was from here that he went on sketching trips to the Campagna. Vivien Noakes (Edward Lear, 1985, p. 93) observes that it was during these early years that Lear 'experimented with different ways of drawing and painting in watercolour, and his work during these years demonstrates a wide range and a rapid mastery of both mediums'