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Lot Essay
Lear first visited Egypt in January 1849, writing to Fortescue 'I strongly long to go to Egypt for the next winter as ever is, if so be as I can find a sufficiency of tin to allow of my passing 4 or 5 months there. I am quite crazy about Memphis & On & Isis & crocodiles and ophthalmia & nubians, and simooms & sorcerers & sphingidoe. Seriously the contemplation of Egypt must fill the mind, the artistic mind I mean, with great food for the rumination of long years.' (Lady Strachey, The Letters of Edward Lear, London, 1907, pp. 8-9.)
His first visit was brief and he saw only Cairo and the Pyramids. However he was to return to Egypt at the end of 1853 and arrived in Cairo in December to find Thomas Seddon (1821-1856) already there and William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) expected on the next boat. Lear received an offer immediately after Christmas to travel up the Nile and Hunt and Lear never journeyed together as they originally planned.
When they reached the Island of Philae, home of Isis and Osiris, the party took luggage, beds and cooking things with them and set themselves up in the Temple of Isis for ten days. Lear wrote to his sister Ann, 'It is impossible to describe the place to you, any further than saying it is more like a real fairy island than anything else I can compare it to. It is very small, & was formerly all covered with temples, of which the ruins of 5 or 6 now only remain. The great T. of Isis, on the terrace of which I now am writing, is so extremely wonderful that no words can give the least idea of it. The Nile is divided here into several channels, by other rocky islands, & beyond you see the desert & the great granite hills of Assouan.' It was thirteen years before Lear was to return to Egypt and Philae.
Lear was much impressed by the scenery and extraordinary light and colours which he found difficult to translate into his work. He painted at least twenty oils of Philae, a place much visited in the 19th Century and one of the most painted places in Egypt (for oil painting by Lear of Philae see Edward Lear 1812-1888, Royal Academy of Arts, exhibition catalogue, London, 1985, p. 146, no. 52).
His first visit was brief and he saw only Cairo and the Pyramids. However he was to return to Egypt at the end of 1853 and arrived in Cairo in December to find Thomas Seddon (1821-1856) already there and William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) expected on the next boat. Lear received an offer immediately after Christmas to travel up the Nile and Hunt and Lear never journeyed together as they originally planned.
When they reached the Island of Philae, home of Isis and Osiris, the party took luggage, beds and cooking things with them and set themselves up in the Temple of Isis for ten days. Lear wrote to his sister Ann, 'It is impossible to describe the place to you, any further than saying it is more like a real fairy island than anything else I can compare it to. It is very small, & was formerly all covered with temples, of which the ruins of 5 or 6 now only remain. The great T. of Isis, on the terrace of which I now am writing, is so extremely wonderful that no words can give the least idea of it. The Nile is divided here into several channels, by other rocky islands, & beyond you see the desert & the great granite hills of Assouan.' It was thirteen years before Lear was to return to Egypt and Philae.
Lear was much impressed by the scenery and extraordinary light and colours which he found difficult to translate into his work. He painted at least twenty oils of Philae, a place much visited in the 19th Century and one of the most painted places in Egypt (for oil painting by Lear of Philae see Edward Lear 1812-1888, Royal Academy of Arts, exhibition catalogue, London, 1985, p. 146, no. 52).