About this artwork

Lear particularly relished painting sites of classical and historical interest. His motive for travelling to Greece was in part that the journey would ‘ensure me a stock of classical subjects for future paintings’. He thought Marathon ‘quite unchanged by time’ from the site which had seen battle between the Persians and the Athenians in 490 BC. Lear visited Marathon with his friend Charles Church in June 1848 and managed to sketch, despite having fallen from his horse and badly damaged his shoulder. Although this watercolour is dated 1848, it is in fact a later studio work.

Updated before 2020

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Edward Lear

Edward Lear