Road near Galle, Ceylon

Location

Country: Sri Lanka
City: Colombo
Place: British High Commission

Edward Lear, best known for nonsense verse and limericks, was also a topographical landscape painter, musician, travel writer, ornithological and natural history draughtsman and an illustrator. Largely self-taught as a painter, he began by drawing animals at Knowsley Hall menagerie; later moving to landscape painting. He lived in Italy from 1837 to 1848, returning briefly when Queen Victoria requested twelve drawing lessons. He later studied at the Royal Academy Schools (1850-51). In 1852 he was introduced to William Holman Hunt, whose paintings became a great influence. From the early 1860s, Lear’s reputation as a landscape painter declined, perhaps partly a result of the mass-produced watercolours he made, which he called ‘Tyrants’.

Places

Sri Lanka, Galle

Subjects

travel & tourism, topography, genre, palm, ox, jungle, forest, Sri Lankan, man, woman, fan, Buddhism, road

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)

Title

Road near Galle, Ceylon

Date

1879

Medium

Oil on canvas

Acquisition

Purchased from John Teed, September 1952

Inscription

bl: monogram on stretcher bar: Road near Galle Edward Lear 1879

GAC number

1867