Ionian Islands 1863: Introduction

In 1864, after half a century of British rule, the Ionian Islands were to be ceded to the independent kingdom of Greece. As the British community in Corfu prepared to leave, Lear debated where he would make his future winter home; he also needed to see and draw the islands other than Corfu that he had never, or only briefly, visited.  In April and May 1863 he travelled to all six of the islands, completing a series of approximately 234 sketches (numbered 1–215 with several A, B and C interpolations). Each of the islands (apart from Corfu, already edited by Philip Sherrard) will be published on this website, with illustrations of the drawings interspersed with newly-transcribed excerpts from Lear’s diary: a detailed commentary on the conditions he encountered, the places he drew and people he met.

Already published:

Paxos 5–11 April 1863

Forthcoming:

Leucada/ Santa Maura: 11–25 April 1863 (under construction)

Ithaca: 26 April–2 May

Cephalonia: 2–17 May

Kythera/ Cerigo: 18–25 May  (under construction)

Zakynthos/ Zante: 26 May–2 June.

Views in the Seven Ionian Islands (1863)

Lear’s Ionian sketches would be worked up as studio watercolours or more ambitious oil paintings, for exhibition and sale. (For more information on his working methods and studio practice see the page about his earlier Ionian journey: Lear in Zakynthos, Ithaca and Cephalonia, 1848.)

He also had something more ambitious in mind. While the Islands were in the news Lear planned to compile a special Ionian volume recording “so great a change in the destiny of these Islands . . . hereafter, perhaps to be as little visited by our countrymen as they have been familiarly known to them for nearly half a century”.

He thought of using photographic reproduction for the illustrations, trying out versions of the drawings in pencil, charcoal, chalk and even lampblack before reluctantly deciding on lithography, a process he had come to dread. He wrote to 600 potential subscribers and began to prepare the plates. It was a gruelling task, working against time; Lear’s letters and diary express much frustration and fatigue with the printing, tinting, colouring  and binding processes.  Drawing on the stone gave him no pleasure because the scenes had to be reversed, so they seemed “unreal, & without any interest”: “I go grinding on most sadly & painfully”.

The handsome folio, Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, was printed by Day & Son and published privately by Lear on 1 December 1863: it cost three guineas (roughly £200 at today’s prices) and consisted of twenty lithographed and tinted plates, a lithographed vignette and a short description of each island.  It is now the most expensive of Lear’s published travel books. (Click here to see all the illustrations, from a modern facsimile.)