Burney-Lear drawings collection

The Burney-Lear Drawings consists of over 1,000 watercolors, sketches, and drawings by Edward Francis Burney, other members of the Burney family, members of the Hoare family, Edward Lear, and others. Most of the drawings are unsigned, and some of the attributions are still uncertain. The majority of the material appears to date from the first half of the nineteenth century.

The collection originally consisted of eight bound albums and three portfolios of unbound drawings. Both albums and portfolios carry numbers assigned to them by Charles J. Sawyer before the sale of the collection to Louis W. Hill, Sr. Sawyer's numbering sequence has been retained, but the unbound drawings have been removed from the three portfolios and placed in one box and six oversize containers. Individual unbound drawings have been given numbers, as have the leaves of the bound albums.

The largest group of drawings in the collection is related to the Burney family. About 200 drawings by Edward Francis Burney, the watercolorist and book illustrator, can be found in Albums 4 and 5a. These include designs for illustrations and studies for larger works. Album 5a also contains works by other members of the E. F. Burney family, including his brother, Thomas Frederick Burney, and his sister, Elizabeth Warren Burney. Albums 1, 5b, and 8 house additional drawings attributed to various members of the Burney family. Landscapes predominate, but there are also several Burney family portraits.

Albums 6 and 7 are almost certainly associated with the family of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and Albums 2 and 3 may be also. These albums contain much amateur work, although there are some interesting views. The watercolors in Albums 2 and 3 may be by the same hand, and it has been suggested that their style recalls that of Samuel Prout or of George Barret the younger.

The last three albums contain work by unrelated artists. There are approximately forty-five landscape sketches by Edward Lear in Album 11. Many of these are identified, annotated, and dated views of Mediterranean scenes. Album 9 houses sepia-wash landscapes attributed to Major-General James Pattison Cockburn. Finally, Album 10 is the sketchbook of an unidentified amateur.

Album 12, the 1986 gift of Louis W. Hill, Jr., contains 127 watercolor sketches and drawings, many attributed to Edward Lear.

The Burney-Lear Drawings are of considerable interest to students of Edward Lear, Edward Francis Burney, and the Burney family in general. Several of the views, such as the scenes of Brighton in Album 1, have some historical value. In addition, the many amateur landscapes provide excellent documentation of the development of the picturesque in England.