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Lear and the Riviera Lots 68-78 Lear left England in November 1864, to spend the winter in the Riviera. Shortly after his arrival he settled down to draw 240 'Tyrants', this task left him exhausted and he decided to spend a few weeks walking along the coast. At the end of November he set off with Giorgio to walk to Genoa; they walked between sixteen and twenty miles a day, returning to Nice on New Year's Eve with 144 drawings. As he wrote to William Holman Hunt from the Promenade des Anglais on 7 January 1865, 'One of my aims this winter was to 'get' all the Corniche or Riviera di Ponente; .. that I have done both ways with 145 sketches & better health than before - also less abdomen'. These sketches he 'penned out' in the evenings for his possible, but never realised, book (V. Noakes, ed., Edward Lear, Selected Letters, Oxford, 1988, pp. 202-3).

Edward Lear (1812-1888)

View of Eze, Côte d'Azur, France

Details

Edward Lear (1812-1888)
View of Eze, Côte d'Azur, France
inscribed and dated 'Eza/3.30. PM./31. Decr. 1864' (lower right) and numbered '(144)' (lower right) and further extensively inscribed with colour notes
pencil, pen and brown ink, and yellow and blue wash, heightened with touches of white
6 7/8 x 9¾ in. (17.5 x 24.8 cm.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 30 November 1978, lot 56.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 16 July 1992, lot 164.
With The Fine Art Society, London, July 1992.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Executed on Lear's journey back from Genoa, this was the last drawing he did on the Corniche walk, numbered '144' of 144.

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