View of Orvieto
Datec. 1843
Artist
Edward Lear
(British painter, printmaker, and author, 1812–1888)
Illustration CitationHenry Gally Knight, The Ecclesiastical architecture of Italy, 2 vols. (London: H. Bohn, 1843). Volume 2; Plate 26
MediumLithograph
Dimensionscomposition: 12 1/16 × 16 13/16 in. (30.6 × 42.7 cm)
sheet: 14 11/16 × 21 13/16 in. (37.3 × 55.4 cm)
sheet: 14 11/16 × 21 13/16 in. (37.3 × 55.4 cm)
Credit LineGift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1978
Object number1978-92
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPRINT
Label TextAlthough Lear is best known today for his nonsense poems, he spent a significant part of his life recording the geography of the various foreign sites to which he traveled. His formal artistic training was limited, but he inherited the rich British tradition of topographical painting. In views such as this, Lear is tapping into the growth in British travel that took place during the second half of the 19th-century. Lear made sketches on location, returning to the studio to work up finished compositions from which lithographs such as this one would have been made. (msf)
