Featured here is one of the many works in the Government Art Collection, accompanied by further information about the work and the artist. The selection of works will change on a regular basis, so please come back again.
Edward Lear is known primarily for his nonsense verse and poetry, but he was also an accomplished topographical landscape painter and illustrator. He lived in Italy as well as Britain and travelled widely around the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India and Sri Lanka. Lear made his only visit to Lebanon in May 1858 after spending two months in Palestine. He arrived in Beirut on 13 May and responded strongly to the beauty of the landscape. "This place is quite different from anything in southern Palestine - & reminds me more of Naples by its numerous villas & gardens, & the civil & gay people," he wrote to his sister Ann. "I was only looking about me yesterday, but today I shall make a drawing of Mt. Lebanon, & the Bay & town - which are really lovely as a whole." From the drawings that he made on the spot, Lear later produced several oil paintings of Beirut from different viewpoints.
