Lear was in the Holy Land, including Lebanon, from March-June 1858, arriving in Beirut by 11 May, during a drawing of the famous Cedars of Lebanon on 21 May (numbered '209', in the collection of Harvard University (7½ x 21¾in.; repr. P Hoper, Edward Lear as a Landscape Draughtsman, 1967, pl. 60). Three further views of the temple, all smaller, are known; these are undated and were probably done back in the studio