The French Riviera in Winter: Watercolours 1875
This watercolour forms part of a charming collection of works painted at Cannes and its environs between January and April 1875. Their understated palette and sweeping washes evoke the work of Edward Lear, who spent the winter of 1864–5 in Nice, painting in similar locations to those depicted in the present collection. Views include Ile Saint Honorat, the Massif de l'Esterel, Antibes Harbour and Le Cannet, along with studies of local women, insects, plants and fruit: native agave, gourd, lemon, pomegranate, and orange groves.
The French Riviera, sheltered to the north by the Maritime Alps and Ligurian Apennines, has exceptionally mild winters and minimal rainfall. In the 19th-century, its popularity flourished as a destination for winter convalescence amongst the British wealthy classes. The air was believed to be good for consumption, and was encouraged by doctors, including the Manchester-born James Henry Bennett, whose own TB had apparently been cured by travelling to Menton. In 1870 he published the influential bestseller, 'Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean'.
Travellers to the region numbered amongst them many Victorian writers, such as Thomas Carlyle, Augustus Hare, Algernon Swinburne and Aubrey Beardsley at Menton; Robert Louis Stevenson at Hyères; and Oscar Wilde at La Napoule, near Cannes. Edward Lear—writer and artist—spent the winter of 1864–5 on the French Riviera, in order to produce work for an exhibition that he planned to hold later in the year. Basing himself in Nice, he visited towns along the coast, including Antibes and Cannes, declaring that he was 'absolutely delighted' with the latter.
In 1882 the region was visited by Queen Victoria for the first time, and in the decades that followed, its popularity as a holiday destination soared. The British love affair with the area—and its restorative powers—was cemented, and on her deathbed the Queen apparently declared: 'Oh, if only I were at Nice, I should recover.'
