View of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives

Edward Lear, who described himself as a “Painter of Poetical Topography,” spent most of his life traveling and painting landscapes. He lived in Rome, Corfu, Cannes, and San Remo and traveled in Italy, Sicily, Greece, Turkey, Malta, Egypt, India, Ceylon, and Palestine. Lear made two trips to Jerusalem, once in 1858 – when he made this watercolor – and again in 1867. His works are Orientalist in style, characterized by a vision of Oriental scenes and motifs reflecting Western fantasies about the exotic and the other. Though he aimed at exact naturalistic representation in his paintings, in his drawings Lear allowed himself greater freedom. He started by sketching rapidly a first outline in pencil before adding contours in pen and wash, at times using photographs of the sites he was portraying.