ST. HELENA

ROBERTS, David (1796-1864). [Tinted Lithograph Titled:] Chancel of the Church of St. Helena.  London: F.G. Moon, 1842.

Tinted lithograph ca. 33 x 48 cm (13 x 19 in.) Some mild foxing otherwise a very good lithograph.

This lithograph shows the Chapel of Saint Helena in the lower level of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Robert's left "London in August 1838 for Paris and thence travelling via Alexandria to Cairo, before visiting the pyramids at Giza. Hiring a cangia, he sailed up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel, stopping on his return north to sketch temples and ancient sites such as Philae, Karnak, Luxor, and Dendera. Back in Cairo he drew its streets and mosques before departing for Syria and Palestine in February 1839. He travelled through Sinai to Petra and thence north, via Hebron and Jaffa, to Jerusalem. From there he made an excursion to the Jordan, the Dead Sea, and Bethlehem and, after spending a further week in Jerusalem, he continued north, visiting many places associated with the Bible, before exploring Baalbek. He sailed for England from Beirut in May 1839, was quarantined in Malta, and returned to London in July. He was the first independent, professional British artist to travel so extensively in the Near East, and brought back 272 sketches, a panorama of Cairo, and three full sketchbooks, enough material to ‘serve me for the rest of my life’ (Roberts, eastern journal, 28 Jan 1839).

Over the next decade Roberts made ‘a serries of intire new drawings’ for the 247 large coloured lithographs executed by Louis Haghe for The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia (1842–9). No publication before this had presented so comprehensive a series of views of the monuments, landscape, and people of the Near East. Roberts was to paint more oils of the East than of any other region he visited, exhibiting thirty-one at the Royal Academy alone. These received critical acclaim and sold for high prices: for example, Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives (Holloway Collection at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham) was commissioned for £330 in 1841 and his Ruins of Baalbec sold for £440 the same year, while The Island of Philae (1843; priv. Coll.) bought by a friend for £100, rapidly sold for £200, and in 1858 fetched 400 guineas. The works remain keenly sought after to this day"(Oxford DNB).

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