Lot Essay
Lear visited the Middle East between March and June 1858. After a tour of the Holy Land, he reached Beirut on 11 May and made drawings of the famous cedars on 20 and 21 May. He was entraced by the cedars and wrote to his sister Anne; 'quite alone on one side of this amphitheatre is a single dark spot a cluster of trees: these are the famous Cedars of Lebanon. - Lebanon doubtless was once thickly covered with such, but now there are only these ones left. - I cannot tell you how delighted I was with those Cedars! - those enormous old trees - a great dark grove - utterly silent, except the singing of birds in numbers. There I staid all that day - the 20th and also the 21st working very hard' (letter to his sister Ann, 26 May 1858).
This watercolour is a slightly more finished version of one of the same size done on the spot and bearing Lear's typical detailed inscriptions and number, 'The Cedars./20:21 May 1858 (193)' (V. Noakes, The Painter Edward Lear, London, 1991, p.76, illustrated in colour). The composition was the basis for one of Lear's nine-foot oils, painted 1860-61, exhibited at Liverpool in 1861 and at the International Exhibition in 1862 and finally sold to Louisa, Lady Ashburton in 1867 but now lost (see Noakes, op.cit., pp.21, 23, 24, 76-7). A smaller oil, 26¾ x 45 5/8in., signed and dated 1870, was sold at Sotheby's on 23 June 1981, lot 25, illustrated in colour (also illustrated in colour, Noakes, op.cit., p.77). A third oil, apparently painted in 1862 and bought by Charles S. Roundell, is now lost (see Lady Strachey, The Letters of Edward Lear, 1907, p.317 no.283). Further watercolours of the cedars were done at the time (eg. Christie's, 15 November 1988, lot 175, illustrated in colour, the basis of a later finished watercolour dated '1858/1862', with the Manning Gallery in 1966, and Christie's 9 July 1985, lot 195, illustrated), and two different views appear among Lear's illustrations to Tennysons's 'The Gardener's Daughter', nos.81 and 82, illustrated, E. Pitman, Edward Lear's Tennyson, Manchester and New York, 1988, pp.116-7.
This watercolour is a slightly more finished version of one of the same size done on the spot and bearing Lear's typical detailed inscriptions and number, 'The Cedars./20:21 May 1858 (193)' (V. Noakes, The Painter Edward Lear, London, 1991, p.76, illustrated in colour). The composition was the basis for one of Lear's nine-foot oils, painted 1860-61, exhibited at Liverpool in 1861 and at the International Exhibition in 1862 and finally sold to Louisa, Lady Ashburton in 1867 but now lost (see Noakes, op.cit., pp.21, 23, 24, 76-7). A smaller oil, 26¾ x 45 5/8in., signed and dated 1870, was sold at Sotheby's on 23 June 1981, lot 25, illustrated in colour (also illustrated in colour, Noakes, op.cit., p.77). A third oil, apparently painted in 1862 and bought by Charles S. Roundell, is now lost (see Lady Strachey, The Letters of Edward Lear, 1907, p.317 no.283). Further watercolours of the cedars were done at the time (eg. Christie's, 15 November 1988, lot 175, illustrated in colour, the basis of a later finished watercolour dated '1858/1862', with the Manning Gallery in 1966, and Christie's 9 July 1985, lot 195, illustrated), and two different views appear among Lear's illustrations to Tennysons's 'The Gardener's Daughter', nos.81 and 82, illustrated, E. Pitman, Edward Lear's Tennyson, Manchester and New York, 1988, pp.116-7.