Photo – Villa Aphrodite’s view over Mon Repos
Edward Lear is well known for his limericks and nonsense rhymes such as “The Owl and the Pussycat”. Lear however dedicated more of his time as a landscape painter. He travelled on foot and horseback through 19th Century Greece, Albania, Southern Italy and the Middle East making drawings, watercolours, lithographs and paintings of landscapes, which he sold to wealthy clients.
Lear returned to Corfu many times. He referred to the island as “No other spot on earth can be fuller of beauty and of variety of beauty.”
To celebrate the bicentenary of Lear’s birth, an exhibition of his works of art will be held (25 May to 31 August 2012) at the Corfu Museum of Asian Art, which is part of the elegant Palace of St Michael and St George close to the Liston and the heart of Corfu’s Old Town.
Just a few kilometres outside Corfu Town, just above Mon Repos (where Prince Philip was born) and set in large private grounds above the sea is Villa Aphrodite, which offers sumptuous accommodation for up to 10 guests.
Thanks for that – we will try to get to see the exhibition if we take a visit to Corfu town from Paxos next week. I am lucky enough to have an original pencil drawing by Lear, of the Lake District, and highly skillful it is too. As you say, he was renowned as an artist rather than limerick-writer, in his day.