A Sailing Ship [verso]

Art Historical Context

Edward Lear’s *A Sailing Ship* [verso] offers a glimpse into the artist’s lifelong fascination with travel and the natural world. Created between 1839 and 1845, the drawing dates from Lear’s early adulthood, a period when he was already gaining recognition as both a natural-history illustrator and a topographical draftsman. Though best remembered today for his nonsense verse, Lear was a skilled and prolific sketcher who recorded scenes from his extensive journeys across Europe and the Mediterranean. Executed in black chalk on light brown wove paper, the work demonstrates Lear’s economical yet...

About the Artist

Edward Lear

Edward Lear (1812–1888) was a British artist, illustrator, author, and poet whose creative output ranged from meticulous natural history illustration to landscape painting and the beloved comic verse of his limericks and nonsense poetry. Born in London as the twentieth of twenty-one children, Lear largely educated himself as a draughtsman and began his professional career illustrating parrots for ...