- 115
Edward Lear British, 1812-1888
bidding is closed
Description
- Edward Lear
- View at Wadi Halfa, Egypt
- inscribed l.l.: Wady Halfen/''make it'' very hot/5.15pm Feby.3.1867 and numbered l.r.: (338), also inscribed with title in pencil and further inscribed variously
- pen and brown ink and watercolour over pencil, unframed
Catalogue Note
This dates from Lear's third visit to Egypt after a thirteen year gap. As he approached Alexandria by boat he wrote `It seems like a dream that I am about to see the blinding brightness of the south once more!' (letter, 17th December 1866). After several days in Cairo, he set off down the Nile stopping off at Luxor, Esneh, Edfu and then Philae. Wadi Halfa in the Nubian desert was as far south as he reached - Lear described it as a `sad,stern, uncompromising landscape, dark ashy purple lines of hills, piles of granite rocks, fringes of palm, and ever and anon astonishing ruins of oldest temples' (letter to Lady Waldegrave, 9th March 1867)