Edward Lear visited Greece in 1848

During his two-month tour to Athens, mainland Greece and the island of Euboea, Edward Lear made almost 150 landscape drawings and kept a diary of his experiences and impressions. Many years later, Lear’s travelling companion, Charles Church, wrote up his own reminiscences of their trip, incorporating parts of Lear’s diary.

On these pages you can read the resultant Journal, together with Church’s Introduction, and see some of Lear’s drawings and paintings of the places they visited.

You will also find details of the method and organisation of Lear’s pictures.

A plan of their journey, together with Maps of the region are provided to help you get your bearings.

Further information about the project includes a description of the original typescript (now in the Westminster School Archive), biographical information about Charles Church, acknowledgements, links to other sites documenting Lear’s travels and suggestions for further reading.

8 Responses to Edward Lear visited Greece in 1848

  1. Peter Byrne says:

    Thanks for you excellent endeavour that will nicely complement Marco Graziosi longterm efforts.

  2. Dudley Moore says:

    Excellent site. Thank you for sharing the information. Do you have any knowledge of his diaries from when he was at Mycenae in the Peloponnesse of Greece in March 1849?

  3. Simon Townsend says:

    An excellent source of information. Could I ask, do the journals refer to his visit to Thessaloniki, there are at least two watercolours of the Macedonian city.

  4. David Seddon AHH says:

    Thank you for this scholarly endeavour and a remarkable collection of images of Edward Lear’s watercolours. Jenny Uglow has written a sympathetic and comprehensive biography of Lear, recently published. The last significant exhibition of his work was at the Royal Academy in 1988 and another is surely overdue. A Lear oil of Mount Athos features in a sale at Sotheby’s in the next week or so

  5. Emily Tock says:

    Brilliant content and effort – I am extremely grateful for the hard work of transcription!

  6. Stephen Duckworth says:

    In reply to Dudley Moore’s question in March 2013, we now know that Lear was at Mycenae and Nemea on 31 March 1849. This is from lists of his drawings in Lear’s hand now come to light at the Yale Center for British Art.

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