Lear was in Corfu in 1863 to make sketches for a set of lithographs of the western Greek islands. He took his favorite walk six miles up from Corfu city to the village of Ascension to capture this eastward looking view, which would appear again in his 1871 watercolor.

"For you may pass your days [on Corfu] beneath vast olives, overbranching dells full of fern & myrtle & soft green fields of bright grass; or in gardens dark with oranges & lemon groves, those fruits sparkling golden & yellow against purple sea and amethyst hills."
-Edward Lear, April 9, 1863