The Pass of Monte D'Oro, Corsica
The Pass of Monte D'Oro, Corsica
Edward Lear (1812-1888)
The Pass of Monte D'Oro, Corsica
Signed with monogram lower left and inscribed on reverse of mount:: Snow peaks exact & sharp off cloud/Foliage all Beech on turf/small stream in foreground
Pen and brown ink and washes and pencil heightened with touches o white, with pen and ink border
8.5 by 10.2 cm., 3 1/4 by 4 in.
Provenance:
Frances, Countess Waldegrave and her husband Chichester Fortescue, friends of the artist
Engraved:
For Lear's Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica, 1870, p.161
Lear's Journal records a visit to Corsica made in the summer of 1868. It was his his last travel book and the only one illustrated with wood engravings. The Journal entry for 19th May 1868 includes the following: `As you pass out of the woody amphitheatre which half circles Bocognano there are beautiful views looking back to the church and villages. After passing the last hamlet the ascent is steep, the road winding up always in face of the huge Monte d'Oro, divided from it by a deep hollow, narrower and clothed less with chestnut and more with ``maquis'' as you mount higher. The scenery of this wild pass is of a vast impressive character, but not very drawable, at least without longer time for study; on the left, the heights of Monte d'Oro are bleak and savage.'