drawing
- Museum number
- 1942,1211.1
- Description
-
Levens Hall, Westmorland; view of the house, including the Howard Tower, from the garden with topiary, seen from the south-east across the broad east-west walk. 1836
Graphite, touched with white, on grey-blue paper
- Production date
- 1836
- Dimensions
-
Height: 239 millimetres
-
Width: 353 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lear visited Mary Howard and her husband Colonel the Hon. Fulke Greville Howard at Levens Hall in Cumbria (then Westmorland) in 1836 when he described it as 'perhaps the finest existing specimen of an antique house' where very little had been altered since the time of Henry VIII except the gardens which dated from the time of James II. Lear was incorrect, however, as the gardens as they stood in this view dated from the time of William and Mary. He particularly admired the ancient yews and the panelled walls in the interior. In June in London he had been 'doing some Lithographic drawings for Mrs. Greville-Howard.' See see Charles Nugent, 'Edward Lear the Landscape Artist', exh. Wordsworth Trust, Dove Cottage, Grasmere, 2009, nos 33-34.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2009 Jul-Oct, Grasmere, Dove Cottage, 'Edward Lear: Tours of Ireland and the English Lakes'
- Acquisition date
- 1942
- Acquisition notes
- A letter from Mrs Bamber in the P&D Dept Letter Books (Nov. 1, 1942) indicates that Mrs Bamber inherited this group of drawings from her father, Ralph Nevill, FSA, who she described as a friend of Lear and she also notes that the artist gave this group of drawings, made on a tour of the Lake District in 1836, to her father. She sold them to the Museum for £10 (for six).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1942,1211.1
