Edward Lear

Sale, London, Christie's, 14 November 1972, lot 106;

sale, London, Christie's, 15 December 2010, lot 72;

where acquired by the uncle of the present owner

Edinburgh, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Visions of the Ottoman Empire, 1994, unnumbered

Lear first visited the Nile in the winter of 1853-4 and one of the places that most affected him was Philae. In a letter to his sister, Ann, he expressed his admiration for the site, writing that ‘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…. The Temple 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… At morning & evening the scene is lovely beyond imagination.¹

Lear continued to be inspired by Philae long after he left Egypt and two oil paintings, which show the scene from the same viewpoint as the present work, survive in private collections.² 

1. V. Noakes, Edward Lear – Selected Letters, Oxford 1988, p. 124
2. Sold London, Christie’s, 15 December 2011, lot 57 and London, Sotheby’s, 24 October 2023, lot 28