Edward Lear, Marsala, Sicily.
Watercolor and ink, monogrammed. 10 x 20 cm – 3,94 x 7,87 in.

Provenance
Vente anonyme, Christie’s, Londres, 14 novembre 1989, n°111

Invaluable.

Edward Lear, View of Taormina and Mount Etna, Palermo.
Watercolor and ink, located and dated. 32 x 48 cm – 12,6 x 18,9 in.

Provenance
Anonymous sale; Bonham’s, Knightsbridge, 27 November 1991, lot 106.

Invaluable.

Edward Lear, Cefalù.
Charcoal and white highlights, signed, dated and located. 17 x 26 cm – 6,7 x 10,2 in.

Provenance
Vente anonyme, Christie’s, Londres, 18 juillet 1989, n°180

Invaluable.

MAM712793 Olive Trees in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1858 (w/c on paper) by Lear, Edward (1812-88); Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, MA, USA; © Mead Art Museum.

Edward Lear, Lago Maggiore from Stresa.
Dated and titled ‘6-7 AM May 31. 1867’ (lower left), numbered ‘(200)’ (lower right) and with pencil annotations (in mountains). Watercolour and pencil. 32 x 52cm

Provenance
The Fine Art Society, New Bond Street, London;
Private collection, UK

The Saleroom.

From the London Review of Books, Vol. 48 No. 17 · 24 September 2026, perhaps not really nonsense, not limericks, but almost:

Hoopoe is the thing
With feathers, and a crest,
Or else a thing with feathers,
Striped wings, and tawny breast.

*

(I never saw a hoopoe –
Unless I was alone –
Except some interloper
Took out their telephone.)

*

Because I could not stop
To watch the hoopoe, he
Made his gentle Poe-Poe-Poe
Of incredulity.

*

Maybe it’s a loophole –
Or maybe I’m a dope:
I never met a hoopoe
And did not think of ‘hope’.

The poem is clearly a parody of Emily Dickinson’s “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” (thanks to Nicholas for the reference; see his comment). The opening of the third stanza, which makes an unmistakable allusion to Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” should likewise have provided a useful clue to the poem’s intertextual relationship with Dickinson’s work.

Edward Lear
Autograph Letter Signed, to the wife of painter William Holman Hunt, explaining that the delayed reply to “Daddy’s” letter [Lear’s nickname for Mr. Hunt] was due to illness, expressing sympathy for the troubles of John Everett Millais and [Edward] Burne-Jones, hoping to forget his recent miseries, mentioning his Tennyson landscape works and discussing a new 15-foot work depicting “Enoch Arden’s Island.” 4 pages, 8vo, written on a folded sheet; marginal markings spanning third and latter portion of fourth paragraphs likely in Mrs. Hunt’s hand, minor soiling along folds, faint scattered foxing.

Mendrisio, 28 August 1881.
“. . . Please thank Daddy for his letter. By yours . . . I find he has still to work very hard, & I fear by your having taken a house at Fulham [London] that you see as yet no near prospect of rest–or have you finally given up all thoughts of returning to Jerusalem?
“. . . My trouble & illness had to do with leaving the old house, & suffering from the glare of the immense white building opposite . . . . But I hope when I return to be able to forget the misery of the past 2 years, & to think as little as possible of the nasty people who caused it.
“Besides the Tennyson Landscapes, I am going to try to paint one subject more, 15 feet long!! Do not laugh. It is a principle with me, that though a man be never so old, he ought not to fold his arms & give up all energy & adopt moulderings; but on the contrary keep himself, if possible, alive for a little extra time, by making new interest & working harder.
“. . . [I]n this new subject, (which is already much backed up by immeasurable studies,) I introduce every kind of flower & tree I saw in India & Ceylon &c &c. And if any Cricket chirping says, ‘it is impossible that all those should grow in one place!’ I shall say, ‘Yes, they do.’ ‘Where?’ ‘In Enoch Arden’s Island!’ ‘And where is that?’ ‘215 miles from the port Enoch’s ship was going to.’ ‘And where then was that port?’ ‘Just 215 miles from Enoch Arden’s island!’ And that is all I shall say. . . .”

“Enoch Arden’s Island,” inspired by Alfred Tennyson’s poem, Enoch Arden, was a large work on canvas begun by Lear in 1876–but never completed–and worked on intermittently until his death in 1888. Although the work was lost, small pencil sketches and watercolor studies exist, showing dense foliage in the foreground extending to a vast and misty expanse of trees in the background.

Invaluable.

Edward Lear, Certosa del Pesio (San Bartolomeo).
Pencil, pen and brown ink, inscribed with title and dated August 1870 lower right, 31 x 48.5cm.

The Saleroom.

Edward Lear, Bordighera.
Signed and inscribed Bordighiera [sic] Edw Lear del (in ink, lower left). Watercolour and bodycolour, with pen and sepia ink. 14.5 x 22.5cm; 5¾ x 8¾in

In December 1864, Lear would have arrived in Bordighera, on the French-Italian border, returning from his walking tour along the Riviera to Genoa. Shelley, a poet whom Lear much admired, had been enraptured by the place. In correspondence, Lear praised the creature comforts and admired the cleanliness, the sanitation and the cuisine. From a light four-wheeled carriage called a vettura, Lear enjoyed the “poke up queer lanes & into olive woods & palm gardens to find a `view`. Very beautiful semi oriental places, & Corfu-like groves of olives..”. This Italian sojourn left a strong impression: `Exit from Italy which I am vexed at.’

The Saleroom.

Edward Lear, Monaco.
Signed and inscribed Monaco Edw Lear del (in ink, lower right). Watercolour, with pen and sepia ink. 14.7 x 22.5cm; 5¾ x 8¾in

Lear wrote to his friend Chichester Fortescue in November 1864 that he ‘had no idea the Cornice was so magnificent in scenery; Eza [sic Eze] and Monaco are wondrously picturesque, and Mentone very pretty’

The Saleroom.