Watercolor with pen and brown ink, and white gouache, over graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, beige wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 3 7/8 x 10 1/8 inches (9.8 x 25.7 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in brown ink, lower left: "10.30 AM Feby 9. 1867. Abou Simbl"; in brown ink, lower right: "(383)"Verso: in graphite, upper left: "up 92 | next Lowest Top"; in graphite, lower center: "A"; in graphite, center right: "230" encircled
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Donald C. Gallup, Yale BA 1934, PhD 1939
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1997.7.208
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
water | sand | stone | cliffs | lake | temples | monument | river | hills | valleys (landforms) | landscape
Associated Places:
Nile | Lake Nasser | Africa | Egypt | Nubia | Abu Simbel
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Art in Focus : Blue (Yale Center for British Art, 2019-04-05 - 2019-08-11)Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)Edward Lear and the Art of Travel (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-09-20 - 2001-01-14)
Publications:
The lure of the east : British Orientalist painting: wall labels, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. [85], V 2577 (YCBA) V 2577The lure of the East, British orientalist painting, 1830-1925 , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2008, p. 17, V 1879 (YCBA)The natural history of Edward Lear, Princeton University Press, Princeton, p. 103, fig. 104, QH31.L424 P43 2021 (YCBA)Scott Wilcox, Edward Lear and the art of travel, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2000, p. 96, no. 95, NJ18 L455 W55 2000 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
These watercolors depict the Sun Temple of Ramesses II, its façade dominated by four monumental statues carved directly from the rock, each 65 feet high, depicting the universal sun gods: Ptah, Re-Harakhte, Amun-Re, and the deified Ramesses II himself. In a letter to his friend Lady Waldegrave on 9 March 1867, Lear wrote that Abu Simbel "took my breath away." In his diary, he wrote: "On deck til 1.30. Last memorials of Abou Simbl-(the position of which I certainly never saw given in any drawing-tho of near views many)." This series of three images captures, in almost filmic fashion, the drift of Lear down the Nile and the changing perspective on the monument the passing of time afforded. This site featured prominently on Victorians' itineraries for visiting Egypt, even though it required a trip up the Nile. In the 1960s the temples were relocated due to the construction of the Aswan dam. Gallery label for Lure of the East - British Orientalist Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-02-07 - 2008-04-28)