David Roberts

After a brief career as a housepainter in Perth, David
Roberts the son of a cobbler began work in 1816 as a scenery painter with Mr
Bannister’s Touring Circus and Theatrical Company. In 1824 Robert’s
paintings were exhibited for the first time at the British Institution in
London. That same year, the artist helped to found the Society of British
Artists and began travelling throughout Europe. Roberts created
numerous drawings during a trip to Spain, a little-known country in
Britain, which were later published but it was Robert’s visit to the Near East
in 1838-9 that became “the great central episode of his artistic life” and
established Roberts as one of the most celebrated artists of his day.

Between 1842 and 1849 the Belgian lithographer Louis Haghe
executed no less than 247 lithographs after Robert’s drawings. These were
issued in monthly instalments and bound into volumes under the unwieldy
title, The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. The
work was a great success. Associations with a biblical past appealed to
the Victorian imagination, and since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, the
tombs and temples along the Nile had been the focus of intense European
fascination. Roberts drew every temple then known between Abu Simbel
and Dendera and on his return to Cairo obtained privileged permission to sketch
inside the city's mosques.

Roberts was determined to use his own artistic talents to
surpass earlier works on the subject. In order to create a true impression of
the visual and emotional impact of the scenes witnessed, Roberts often forsook
topographical accuracy in favour of dramatic pictorial effect. The first
professional English artist to visit Egypt independently of a patron or
expedition, Roberts set a standard for all topographical illustration that
remains unchallenged to this day.