Milan Cathedral

Location

Country: Italy
City: Rome
Place: British Embassy

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

Italy, Milan Cathedral, Milan

Subjects

carriage, cart, topography, genre, townscape/cityscape, horse, man, woman, crowd, street, cathedral, church windows, tracery, balcony

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), body colour, pencil, ink, chalk, chalk drawing, Ink drawing, pencil drawing, toned

Artist

Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)

Title

Milan Cathedral

Date

4 October 1837

Medium

Pencil, chalk, ink, and body colour on toned paper

Dimensions

height: 25.70 cm, width: 36.30 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from John Teed, October 1954

Inscription

tl in sky: 'Milano. / 4th. Oct.br 1837'

GAC number

2862