One of the most productive of Lear’s travels in terms of high quality landscape drawings was his visit to Mount Athos in Greece in September 1856. Stephen Duckworth’s new website presents all the current research on that visit. Lear’s journal has been lost but the site contains transcriptions of his extensive letters to his sister Ann, and shorter extracts from letters to four friends including William Holman Hunt with interesting variances on how he chose to describe his experiences. There are some fifty images of his drawings including ones of all the twenty main monasteries he visited. Some of these are exemplary in showing the buildings amidst dramatic landscapes. Finally of the 79 drawings he made on the journey, provenance details have been found for the vast majority, some of which can be viewed in public collections:
Edward Lear & Mount Athos: his visit in 1856
