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The Monastery of St. Sabbas the Sanctified, near Bethlehem

image © Guy Peppiatt Fine Art | All Rights Reserved

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Date

1858

Artist

Edward Lear (1812-1888)

Collection

Guy Peppiatt Fine Art

Description

This drawing dates from Lear’s trip to the Holy Land in the spring of 1858. He was at Petra on 13th April then continued to the Dead Sea and Masada reaching St. Sabbas at the end of the month. The Monastery of St. Sabbas, or Mar Saba in arabic, overlooks the Kidron valley in the West Bank half way between the Dead Sea and Jerusalem, just east of Bethlehem. Founded in 483, it is considered one of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world.

Lear mentions his visit to St. Sabbas in a letter to his sister Ann, dated 21st May, and wrote that he executed `some good drawings’ despite the fact that `the whole place, even on May 1st was so like an oven that I felt as if I should be baked’ (R. Pitman, Edward Lear’s Tennyson, 1988, pp.88-89). A drawing of St. Sabbas executed on 30th April 1858 is in a private collection and another of a similar size to the present work, dated 30th April and numbered 122 is in the Houghton Library, Harvard.

Image Licence

All Rights Reserved

Image Credit

image © Guy Peppiatt Fine Art

Location

Mar Saba Monastery, Palestine

Country

Tags

Religious Buildings
Canyons
Cliffs

Category

Buildings & Architecture

Glossary
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© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform

© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform