This watercolour by Edward Lear with studies on the Nile, executed on his second journey to Egypt in 1854, is divided into three tiers. Above, sketches of local herdsmen and a single study of a Nile cargo vessel can be seen. The second tier shows a gyassi passing a barren, rocky stretch of the Nile’s banks, while below Lear added a more distant view of the river and a study of a cliff. The colours are restricted to yellows, ochres, and browns.

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 luminous colours in their own right which are intended to trigger poetical sentiment in the beholder and characterize the scene as picturesque.