Lot Essay
From 1878 Lear visited Monte Generoso, across the Swiss frontier from Como, every summer until 1883 when his faithful servant Georgio died there. Sacromonte is a common name in the area and usually denotes a place of pilgrimage. One such is just outside Varese, where Lear was in July 1879.
The somewhat cryptic inscriptions in the distance, 'SIRIA', may be an echo of Lear's extravagant if joking claim in a letter to his nephew from Monte Generoso of 27 July 1878: 'There is one point from which you may (perhaps) see all the plains and lakes of Italy, besides the rivers Jordan, Mississippi and Amazon, the whole course of the Nile, - as well as the cities of Peking, St. Petersburg and Copenhagen, not to speak of the straits of Jamaica and Joppa with the adjacent islands of Cappadocia, Ceylon and Islington (reprinted V. Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, exh.cat., London, Royal Academy, 1985, p.122)
The somewhat cryptic inscriptions in the distance, 'SIRIA', may be an echo of Lear's extravagant if joking claim in a letter to his nephew from Monte Generoso of 27 July 1878: 'There is one point from which you may (perhaps) see all the plains and lakes of Italy, besides the rivers Jordan, Mississippi and Amazon, the whole course of the Nile, - as well as the cities of Peking, St. Petersburg and Copenhagen, not to speak of the straits of Jamaica and Joppa with the adjacent islands of Cappadocia, Ceylon and Islington (reprinted V. Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, exh.cat., London, Royal Academy, 1985, p.122)