EDWARD LEAR (1812-1888)

AN EXPANSIVE VIEW TOWARDS TIVOLI
Signed, inscribed & dated l.r. 1839
Pencil heightened with white, on blue-grey wove paper
22.5 x 33 cm
 
PROVENANCE:
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Clwyd, Scotland
 
 
 
 
With financial backing from Lord Derby, Lear set out for Italy in the summer of 1837. For most of the next ten years Lear wintered in Rome and toured other parts of Italy during the summer. This visit to Tivoli is referred to by Lear in a letter dated 3rd May 1838 to his sister Ann: ‘I, and Uwins and Mr Acland set off on Saturday – staying some days at many beautiful places all (of) which I will tell you about. I must now describe my dear Tivoli as I promised the height of landscape perfection...', continuing ‘all the rich ancients had villas there. You now pass a vast tract of ruins – Cypresses etc., towers etc…Then you commence a long pull up to the town through the most beautiful olive wood! – such trees! – and every now and then you see bits of the ancient villas – all that is left of once vast buildings – now only a few arches with the curious Roman brick-work – covered with large aloes – or roofs of olives.’ (1)

Lear was so enthralled by the beauty of Tivoli that, after his first visit in 1838, he returned there many times and there are two different views of the town in his Views in Rome and its Environs, London (1841), plates 23 and 24. The present work is typical of Lear's early style, with the technique and composition of such works indebted to James Duffield Harding, whose instructive texts Lear was closely familiar with.