Absalom’s Pillar in the Valley of Jehosophat

Location

Country: France
City: Strasbourg
Place: UK Delegation to Council of Europe

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

Middle East, Israel, Absalom's Pillar, Jerusalem

Subjects

topography, townscape/cityscape, stone/rock, valley, man, woman, pillar (architectural feature)

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), watercolour (as artists materials), watercolour (as object name)

Artist

Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)

Title

Absalom’s Pillar in the Valley of Jehosophat

Date

1858

Medium

Watercolour on paper

Dimensions

height: 17.00 cm, width: 26.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Leger Galleries, June 1959

Inscription

ins&sdbl

GAC number

4941