During his third visit to Egypt in 1867 Edward Lear collected these five sketches. On the top of the paper are three separate images of a barge laden with straw. Underneath on the left is a scene of four seated Egyptians and of a landscape view near Luxor at dusk on the right.

Although Lear worked in the tradition of British topographical art, his drawings leave behind its documentary attitude, which recorded landscape and geographical features for the benefit of their antiquarian and natural historical associations. If, as in the case of his Egyptian images, the past is alluded to, Lear conveys it with a mysterious and exotic character, rather than attempting to re-establish the historical and particularly biblical topography which had drawn other travellers to the Near and Middle East. It is mostly the colours in their own right which are intended to trigger poetical sentimEent in the beholder and characterize the scene as picturesque.