View of Part of the Ruins of Lepida, Barbary

Earle embarked for the Mediterranean in 1815 on the first excursion of what would be an itinerant career. He spent two years visiting Sicily, Malta, Gibraltar and North Africa before returning to England in 1817. The present watercolour dates to this first excursion, from which few other works survive. Hackforth-Jones lists just one other known North African subject, The Ruins of Leptis Magna, 1816, in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (J. Hackforth-Jones, Augustus Earle, Travel Artist, London, 1980, pp.147-151). Earle briefly describes the present subject in the introduction to his A Narrative of a Nine Month's Residence in New Zealand in 1827... (London, 1832): 'although educated as an artist, "a love of roving and adventure" tempted his, at an early age, to sea. Accordingly, in 1815, he procured a passage on board a storeship bound to Sicily and Malta. A peace being concluded with the Bey, he visited the ruins of Carthage, and likewise the remains of the ancient city of Ptolomea or Lepidam situated in ancient Libya: the Bey providing our traveller and his companions with a tent, camels, and a strong guard of Jamissaries to protect them against the Arabs. After this he returned to Malta, passed through Sicily and ascended Mount Etna. He next preceeded to Gibraltar, taking a minute survey of that mighty rock, its batteries, caves and Moorish ruins.'