Although now most famous as a nonsense poet, Lear was an outstanding and prolific landscape artist. He lived intermittently on the island of Corfu between 1855 and 1864. Pótamos lies to the west of Corfu town. Lear’s pattern of work on Corfu was to spend mornings in the studio ‘penning out’ and adding colour to old sketches and painting new commissions, before going out sketching in the afternoon. He may have reworked this sketch both on the spot and in the studio, as the figures and the vine trellis at the top may be later additions to the composition.