Lear Nonsense drawing of an Aligator
LEAR, Edward (1812-1888).
On the Nile.
Pen and brown ink on laid paper.
Watermarked: 1836 and embossed with a fleur de lys.
4 1/4" x 7 1/4" sheet; 11" x 13 1/4" framed.
Provenance: George and Fanny Coombe (née Drewitt), Peppering House, Sussex.
Lear’s biographer Vivien Noakes has noted that Lear ‘was at his best when drawing majestic, unpretty birds like ravens and owls; he endowed them with sagacious personalities, and it is tempting to wonder if Lear found a common bond with birds, for they too were at the mercy of unscrupulous men’ (Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear - The Life of a Wanderer, 1968, p.40). Lear drew an eagle owl for Gould’s Birds of Europe, vol. 4 published in 1837 so the present drawing may have been executed from memory.Two drawings of Scops owls, executed in watercolour by Lear, one dated May 1848 when he was on Corfu, were with Andrew Wyld in 2010 (see W.S. Fine Art, exhibition catalogue, 2010, nos. 42 and 43).The Drewitt family were childhood friends of Lear living at Peppering House near Arundel, Sussex. Lear’s sister Sarah married Charles Street in 1822 and moved to near Arundel so Lear was a frequent visitor to the area. Fanny Drewitt married George Coombe probably in 1831 and they lived at Peppering House. A group of letters from Lear to the Coombes were rediscovered in the 1990s and were at Christies’ on June 29, 1995. They are now in the Frederick Warne Archive. They provide a useful early record of Lear’s life and movements.Edward Lear (1812-1888)Edward Lear was born into a middle-class family at Holloway, North London, the penultimate of twenty-one children (and youngest to survive) of Ann Clark Skerrett and Jeremiah Lear. He was brought up by his eldest sister, also named Ann, twenty-one years his senior. Owing to the family's limited finances, Lear and his sister were required to leave the family home and live together when he was aged four. Ann doted on Edward and continued to act as a mother for him until her death, when he was almost fifty years of age.
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LEAR, Edward (1812-1888).
On the Nile.
Pen and brown ink on laid paper.
Watermarked: 1836 and embossed with a fleur de lys.
4 1/4" x 7 1/4" sheet; 11" x 13 1/4" framed.
Provenance: George and Fanny Coombe (née Drewitt), Peppering House, Sussex.
Lear’s biographer Vivien Noakes has noted that Lear ‘was at his best when drawing majestic, unpretty birds like ravens and owls; he endowed them with sagacious personalities, and it is tempting to wonder if Lear found a common bond with birds, for they too were at the mercy of unscrupulous men’ (Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear - The Life of a Wanderer, 1968, p.40). Lear drew an eagle owl for Gould’s Birds of Europe, vol. 4 published in 1837 so the present drawing may have been executed from memory.Two drawings of Scops owls, executed in watercolour by Lear, one dated May 1848 when he was on Corfu, were with Andrew Wyld in 2010 (see W.S. Fine Art, exhibition catalogue, 2010, nos. 42 and 43).The Drewitt family were childhood friends of Lear living at Peppering House near Arundel, Sussex. Lear’s sister Sarah married Charles Street in 1822 and moved to near Arundel so Lear was a frequent visitor to the area. Fanny Drewitt married George Coombe probably in 1831 and they lived at Peppering House. A group of letters from Lear to the Coombes were rediscovered in the 1990s and were at Christies’ on June 29, 1995. They are now in the Frederick Warne Archive. They provide a useful early record of Lear’s life and movements.Edward Lear (1812-1888)Edward Lear was born into a middle-class family at Holloway, North London, the penultimate of twenty-one children (and youngest to survive) of Ann Clark Skerrett and Jeremiah Lear. He was brought up by his eldest sister, also named Ann, twenty-one years his senior. Owing to the family's limited finances, Lear and his sister were required to leave the family home and live together when he was aged four. Ann doted on Edward and continued to act as a mother for him until her death, when he was almost fifty years of age.
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