View of Beirut

Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)

Oil on canvas

c.1861

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Department for International Trade, Old Admiralty Building

    Edward Lear made his only visit to Lebanon in May 1858, after spending two months in Palestine. He arrived in Beirut on 13 May and later described the city in a letter to his sister, Ann:

    'This place is quite different from anything in southern Palestine - & reminds me more of Naples by its numerous villas & gardens, & the civil & gay people. I was only looking about me yesterday, but today I shall make a drawing of Mt. Lebanon, & the Bay & town - which are really lovely as a whole.'

    From the drawings he made on the spot, Lear later produced several oil paintings of Beirut, showing the city from different viewpoints.

  • About the artist
    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’.
  • Explore
    Places
    Middle East, Lebanon, Beirut
    Subjects
    orientalism, genre, townscape/cityscape, tree, mountain, stone/rock, valley, sea, Lebanese, man, Middle Eastern, robe, cemetery, dome, tower
    Materials & Techniques
    canvas, oil, oil painting
  • Details
    Artist
    Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)
    Title
    View of Beirut
    Date
    c.1861
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    height: 45.30 cm, width: 69.30 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from the Leger Galleries, June 1953
    Inscription
    br: EL (monogram)
    Provenance
    With Leger Galleries; from whom purchased by the Ministry of Works in June 1953
    GAC number
    2150