Between Caracalla and Laura, Mount Athos, Greece

Edward Lear (1812-1888)
Between Caracalla and Laura, Mount Athos, Greece

Inscribed lower left: between Karacalla & Laura and lower right: 5.th Sept. 1856
Pen and brown ink and watercolour
15 by 23cm., 5 ¾ by 9 inches

Caracalla and Laura are two monasteries on the Holy Mountain of Athos. Lear spent three weeks there in the late summer of 1856 - he appreciated the scenery and was well received by the monks. The present watercolour shows the ruggedness of the landscape through which he travelled which he described as `abundantly and exquisitely glorious and stupendous' (letter to Chichester Fortescue, 9th October 1856, quoted in Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, 1985, p.147). A watercolour of the monastery at Caracalla by Lear, dated 4th September 1856, was sold at Sotheby's on 11th July 1990, lot 138

Provenance:
H.C. Green, his sale, Sotheby's London, 18th October 1961, lot 93;
Mrs Robert M. Benjamin, New York

Exhibited:
New York, Davis Galleries, Edward Lear, 24 October to 19 November 1966