File:'Near Esneh.2.P.M. Feby 22. 1867. (540)' RMG PU9115.tiff

This watercolour of a large Nile craft berthed on the river’s bank was taken by Edward Lear in the afternoon on 22 February 1867 during the artist’s third visit to Egypt. It could be same vessel that appears in two other watercolours executed earlier the same month (PAD9105 and PAD9106) and might therefore be the ship he was travelling on.

By the time of his third visit to Egypt, Lear had established his individual style, which, despite its sense of detailed observation, mostly emphasizes sensitive colouring and rather swooping pencil lines. Lear tended to scribble notes onto the image clearly marking them as sketches, including descriptive comments on staffage figures or vegetation, but also on colour hues.

In this view Lear does specify the location as ‘Near Esneh’ and notes the time of day, thereby turning the watercolour into a visual journal record of his journey. The spectator seems to be standing on a plateau above the river. The vessel is seen from above close to the foreground. A mountain range forms the far bank of the Nile. The calm waters of the Nile are depicted in a pale blue hue which corresponds to the cloudless sky above. A few figures can be seen on the colourfully decorated ship, which seems to have come to a short stay on a longer journey along the river.

Although Lear worked in the tradition of British topographical art, his drawings leave behind its documentary attitude, which recorded landscape and geographical features for the benefit of their antiquarian and natural historical associations. If, as in the case of his Egyptian images, the past is alluded to, Lear conveys it with a mysterious and exotic character, rather than attempting to re-establish the historical and particularly biblical topography which had drawn other travellers to the Near and Middle East. It is mostly the colours in their own right which are intended to trigger poetical sentiment in the beholder and characterize the scene as picturesque.

In the watercolour the vessel signifies present life and activity, but with the beginnings of modern tourism in the region the artist’s emphasis on its traditional build also conveys the romanticized impression of timelessness, equating the ‘exotic’ and ‘oriental’ present with the distant past.