Edward Lear (1813-1888) [Aw179]
THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE, 1865
Pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with white; inscribed and dated by the artist lower left: Venice Nov/13 9-10 AM 1865 (from the Gondola. x/16); further inscribed below with other notes (some illegible) in ink and pencil (H. 31 cm, W. 50 cm)
This watercolour dates from Lear’s second visit to Venice, in November 1865. The city had been a disappointment to him in 1857, but he returned to sketch views for a commission of an oil from his patron Lady Waldegrave. The present work is dated 13th November, as are three other large watercolours of the Grand Canal. Lear’s diary for that day records: `had a cup of cafe noir in the hotel – and then got a gondola for the day. First drew S(anta)-M(aria) de S(alute) by [the] Doge’s Palace – then from the Iron Bridge… but it was very cold’. Perhaps because of the cold, Lear did not remain in one place for more than a few hours, and returned to finish this and another of the watercolours three days later on the 16th: `The same bright gorgeous – but cold weather. Anything so indescribably beautiful as the colour of the place I never saw’.
The first watercolour drawn by Lear on the 13th November, started at 8 am, is in a private collection. The Winchester view is inscribed `9-10am’ and is taken from the Accademia Bridge (`the Iron Bridge’) looking east along the Grand Canal towards Santa Maria della Salute. Lady Waldegrave does not seem to have specified a particular view for her painting and this is one of the watercolours on which Lear based the finished oil, which is still in the collection of the Waldegrave family. Lear worked on the oil over that winter but he much preferred to paint landscapes rather than buildings. He wrote: `These Venetian scenes are no delight to me’ as they lacked `the poetry of plain or mountains – or woods – or rocks, Man-work – not God work’.
The third large watercolour begun by Lear on the 13th November is a view of the Rialto Bridge from along the Grand Canal (inscribed `2pm’), sold at Sotheby’s in January 2021. Lear appears then to have returned to the Iron Bridge, because a final watercolour, with almost the same composition as the Winchester view, is inscribed ‘3pm’. It was sold at Christie’s in 1997 and is now in the collection of the Morgan Library, New York. The extensive colour notes on these last two drawings, and the short time interval between them, suggest that Lear made only a quick sketch on the spot and later worked up the pictures in his studio.
Exhibited: Sotheby’s, London, Watercolours from Winchester College, 1988, no. 29.
Provenance: Agnew’s, London; gift of Harry Collison, 1940.