- 85
Edward Lear 1812-1888
bidding is closed
Description
- Edward Lear
- The Tomb of Cecilia Metella on the Via Appia, Rome; and the Tor di Schiavi on the Via Labicana, Rome
- The former signed l.l.: 1842 / Ed Lear the latter signed l.r.:E.Lear.1842
- A pair, both oil on canvas
Provenance
Painted for Captain and Miss Phipps Hornby of Shooters Hill, Kent;
Miss Edith Jones, and thence by descent until sold, Sotheby's, 29th October 1986, lots 308 and 309
Miss Edith Jones, and thence by descent until sold, Sotheby's, 29th October 1986, lots 308 and 309
Catalogue Note
The tomb of Cecilia Metella was built circa 50 BC. Cecilia Metella was the daughter of a Roman Consul, Creticus. She married the son of Crassus, a member of the first Roman Triumvirate and one of the richest men in Rome in the first century BC, but little more is know about her. The Via Labicana is an ancient road running south east from Rome.
Lear travelled to Italy in 1837 and, with the exception of two visits to England in 1841 and 1845-6, he stayed there for the next ten years. He was part of an international community of artists, and he maintained his financial independence by teaching drawing, selling his pictures, and writing two illustrated books on Italy.