David Roberts R.A. 1796-1864

Roberts left England for Alexandria on 21st August 1838 and there he begun his eleven month journey around Egypt and the Holy Land.  Whilst he was there he filled three sketchbooks and made over 272 drawings and, as a result, this period has been described as 'the great central episode of his artistic life' (see James Ballantine, The Life of David Roberts, 1866, p.231).

Roberts was in Egypt from September 1838 until February 1839 before travelling on to Palestine and the Lebanon.  He returned to London in July 1839 and soon set to work on a series of finished watercolours based on his sketches which were published as lithographs between 1842 and 1849.  In 1840 he exhibited his on-the-spot drawings in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere to encourage subscribers and they were very well received.  Whilst Roberts was in Edinburgh a dinner was held in his honour and Lord Cockburn eloquently praised his achievements, revealing that he had 'explored that patriarchal land; he searched its inmost recesses, and returned to his native country laden with the richest treasures, after having completed the finest pilgrimage of art which has ever perhaps been performed by a single man' (see Helen Guiterman and Briony Llewellyn, David Roberts, 1986, p.69).

Roberts exhibited an oil at the Royal Academy in 1846 (no.13) which was a more romanticised version of the view depicted in the present watercolour.  Roberts's oil was sold at Christie's on 26th April 1974, lot 117 and was last recorded in 1975 in a private collection.

We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in cataloguing this watercolour