Catania, Sicily

Lear travelled to Sicily in the company of John Joshua Proby (1780-1855), subsequently 2nd Earl of Carysfort, between May and July 1847, recording the places that they visited both in his sketchbook and in his diary. He wrote in a later letter that 'Proby makes a perfectly excellent companion - and we now go on with perfect comfort and smoothness; indeed I now like him so much that I do not at all like to think of his leaving me' (A. Davidson, Edward Lear: Landscape Painter and Nonsense Poet, 1812-1888, London, 1938, pp. 43-44).