Description
Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of white on grey paper.
Lear arrived in Rome at the end of 1837 and remained there until 1848. He tended to winter in Rome and spend the summers exploring the rest of Italy. He spent much time in the Roman Campagna, a flat desolate area outside the city which was littered with Roman remains. In the 1840s he befriended a wealthy widow Jane Davy who had the advantage of a carriage and together they explored the area. A view of the Aqueduct of Nero, dated 20th September 1844, was with Guy Peppiatt Fine Art in 2011 (see summer exhibition catalogue, 2011, no.49) and for other works from this period, see Scott Wilcox, Edward Lear and the Art of Travel, 2000, nos. 29-31.
Stylistically this shows Lear’s work at its most traditional, influenced by the artists he came across in Rome. Until the early 1840s his landscape drawings were executed in pencil heightened with white showing the influence of James Duffield Harding and from the late 1840s he developed his unique style for which he is best known.
This is view of the Tor san Giovanni, also known as the Torre Salaria, which is located north of the old city of Rome on the Via Salaria, where the Aniene joins the River Tiber. This medieval watch-tower was built on top of an ancient Roman tomb carved out of tufa known as Sepolcro di Mario, after Marius, the leader of a faction in the First Roman Civil War. Once a landmark on the empty Roman landscape, the tower, which still stands, has been enveloped by the spread of modern Rome.
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
image © Guy Peppiatt Fine Art
Location
Torre Salaria, Rome, Italy
Country
Italy
Tags
Category
Buildings & Architecture
