Erbalunga, Corsica, at dawn

Edward Lear (1812-1888)
Erbalunga, Corsica, at dawn

Signed with monogram lower left
Pen and grey ink and watercolour and pencil heightened with bodycolour
11.5 by 18.7cm., 4 ½ by 7 ¼ in.

Lear visited Corsica in 1868 and published an account of his visit in `Journal of a Landscape Painter' in 1870. His diary entry for the 25th May 1868 reads as follows:

`... Erbalunga, a good-sized and most picturesque place, some nine or ten kilometres from Bastia, cannot be left so hastily. Standing on a little promontory, with a dark castle in ruin at its point, and with Elba beyond, this is one of the very prettiest of scenes, and detains me drawing it till 7A.M. The still sea, palest of the pale, and more like liquid opal, and the equally pale sky of early morning, are beautifully contrasted with the dark gray of the rocks and houses, and at this time in deepest shadow, and with the luxuriant foreground of fig trees and other foliage.'

A view of Erbalunga from this viewpoint is illustrated on page 198 of his Journal. A full watercolour of this view by Lear was sold at Sotheby's on 21st March 2002, lot 243