Tombs of the Memlooks, Cairo

Roberts famous views of the scenery of the Middle East. David Roberts R.A. (1796-1864), was born at Stockbridge near Edinburgh, the son of a shoemaker. After an apprenticeship as a house painter, he joined a travelling circus as a scene painter, eventually working in London for Drury Lane. Gradually he abandoned the theatrical world for that of the London galleries and exhibited his work at the Royal Academy and British Institution. He left London for the Middle East in August 1838, sailing direct to Alexandria and spending two and a half months travelling through Egypt recording the monumental ruins along the Nile. Roberts left Cairo for the Holy Land on February 7th 1839. Accompanied by two chance met Englishmen, they attached themselves to a group of Beduin for the eleven day camel ride across the Sinai to St. Catherine’s. After expeditions to Aquaba, Petra, Hebron, Gaza and Jaffa, he arrived at Jerusalem on Good Friday, where he received much encouragement from the Turkish Governor. Roberts made his way north to the Mediterranean via Nablus and Nazareth, recording on the way his impressions of Acre, Tyre and Sidon. However, by the time he reached Baalbek war had broken out between Turkey and Egypt and he was forced to turn west for Beirut and home. Roberts, a sound business man hoped that his Eastern lithographs would be ‘one of the richest folios that ever left the East’ , and indeed Abbey claims that it is ‘one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth century publishing’. (See Bibliography inside front cover).