Pentedatelo, Calabria, Italy

Edward Lear

1847 (?) · Watercolor over graphite · Drawings and Prints

Lear made this drawing on a trip through southern Italy in 1847. His diary records that on July 30, he arrived, “at an elevated plateau whence the whole 'Toe of Italy' is finely discernible, a sea of undulating lines of varied forms down to the Mediterranean; a few towns glittered here and there, and towering over the southern extremity of land, a high cluster or rocks, the wild crags of Pentedátelo, particularly arrested our attention." From a villa surrounded by a grape arbor and melon patch we look toward a distant cluster of jagged peaks (the Pentedatelo, or Pentedattilo, a geological formation that resembles five fingers). The watercolor's original colors have faded significantly, but the work remains a useful record of Lear's journey.

Artist

Edward Lear

Date

1847 (?)

Medium

Watercolor over graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James Gordon Douglas III, 2014