David Roberts: Life, Egypt & Holy Land Paintings & Art Prints
The Scottish painter who drew Egypt and the Holy Land for Victorian Britain. The life of David Roberts from the Edinburgh theatres to the Royal Academy, Spain and Tangier, the Nile temples, Petra and Baalbec, the Louis Haghe lithographs, Venice and the Thames, where to see his work and how to hang David Roberts wall art at home. By Artwork Culture.
David Roberts (1796–1864) was the Scottish painter who showed Victorian Britain what Egypt and the Holy Land looked like. A shoemaker’s son from Edinburgh who started out painting houses and theatre scenery, he set off alone for Egypt in 1838 and spent eleven months sketching the temples of the Nile, the mosques of Cairo, the rock city of Petra and the towns of the Holy Land. Turned into 247 tinted lithographs by Louis Haghe, those sketches became one of the most celebrated illustrated books of the century, and they are still the images many people picture when they think of the pyramids, Abu Simbel or Karnak.
This guide covers Roberts’s life from the Edinburgh theatres to the Royal Academy, his travels in Spain, Egypt and the Holy Land, the great lithograph series, his later views of Italy and London, where to see his work today, and how to hang David Roberts art prints at home. Our David Roberts collection holds 238 archival prints, from the Great Sphinx at Giza to the rock-cut tombs of Petra.
Who Was David Roberts?
David Roberts was a Scottish painter of architecture and faraway places. He was not the first European artist to draw the monuments of Egypt, but he was the first independent British professional to tour Egypt and the Near East so widely and record what he saw in such quantity and detail. Years of painting stage scenery had taught him how to make a vast building read at a glance, how to place tiny figures to give it scale, and how to light it for drama. Browse his work in our David Roberts collection.
How to spot a David Roberts picture:
- Architecture as the hero: temples, mosques, cathedrals and city gates fill the frame, as in the Great Hall at Karnak.
- Tiny figures for scale: groups of travellers, traders and boatmen sit at the foot of columns and colossi, making the stone look enormous.
- Warm, tinted colour: the lithographs use soft sand, rose and grey-blue tints, often with a pale sky and a horizon of desert or river.
- Theatrical light: low sun, glowing sunsets and deep shadow, learned in the theatre, as in the approaching sandstorm at Giza.
- A dated caption: many Egypt plates carry the place and the day he drew it, such as ‘Karnac, Nov. 29th, 1838’.
Edinburgh, House Painting and the Theatre
David Roberts was born on 24 October 1796 in Stockbridge, then a village on the edge of Edinburgh. His family was poor, and as a boy he was apprenticed for seven years to Gavin Beugo, a house painter and decorator. The training was practical: imitating marble and wood grain, mixing colour by the bucket and working fast on large surfaces. A fellow apprentice, David Ramsay Hay, later a well-known decorator and colour theorist, became a lifelong friend.
In 1816 Roberts joined James Bannister’s travelling circus as a scene painter and toured England with it. Back in Scotland he painted scenery at the Pantheon in Edinburgh, then became principal scene painter at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow and, from 1819, at the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh. In 1820 he married the actress Margaret McLachlan, and their only child, Christine, was born in 1821. The marriage did not last; by 1831 Margaret’s drinking had led Roberts to send her home to Scotland to be looked after by friends.
Roberts never lost his Scottish ties. Our collection includes Edinburgh from the Calton Hill, Edinburgh from the Castle and the ruined courtyard of Linlithgow Palace. For his fellow Scots, see Alexander Nasmyth, often called the father of Scottish landscape painting, and Sir David Wilkie.
Scene Painter in London
In 1822 Roberts moved to London to paint scenery at the Coburg Theatre, and soon moved on to Drury Lane. There he worked beside the marine painter Clarkson Stanfield on giant dioramas and moving panoramas, the special effects of the day. The work paid well and taught him to think on a huge scale, but Roberts wanted to be a painter of easel pictures, and he began sending architectural views to the London exhibitions.
He found his subject in old buildings. Sketching tours of Normandy and the Low Countries gave him Gothic cathedrals and crowded medieval streets, painted with warm light and busy little figures: see Rouen Cathedral, the west front of Notre-Dame, Rouen, Notre-Dame, Paris and the tower of St Rombouts, Mechelen. In 1829 his large biblical scene The Departure of the Israelites drew attention, and in 1831 he was elected president of the Society of British Artists. For Romantic contemporaries, see our Romanticism art prints and J. M. W. Turner.
Spain and Tangier
In 1832 Roberts left for Spain, still little visited by British artists, and stayed until the end of 1833. He drew the cathedral of Burgos, the Royal Palace in Madrid, the Alcázar of Segovia on its rock, the Great Mosque at Córdoba and the Giralda tower in Seville, and crossed the strait to Tangier in Morocco, his first sight of the Islamic world. On the way he sketched the Moorish castle at Gibraltar.
The Spanish pictures made his reputation. His Interior of Seville Cathedral sold for £300 at the British Institution in 1834, and his drawings were published as lithographs in Picturesque Sketches in Spain (1837). Spain also showed him the Moorish architecture that pointed him further east. Our collection has 20 Spanish, Moroccan and Gibraltar scenes, including his lively bullfight sketch from Seville and the fountain on the Prado. See also our Spanish art prints.
Egypt and Nubia: Up the Nile
On 31 August 1838 Roberts sailed for Egypt, aged 41, with no patron and no expedition behind him. He landed at Alexandria, where he drew Pompey’s Pillar and Cleopatra’s Needle, and went on to Cairo. There he hired a boat with a crew and sailed up the Nile, past Thebes, through Upper Egypt and into Nubia as far as Abu Simbel, then drifted back downstream, stopping to draw at each temple.
The plates carry the dates he made the drawings, so you can follow the journey day by day: Kom Ombo, 21 November 1838, the portico at Edfu, 23 November, the Great Hall at Karnak, 28 November, the statues of Memnon, 4 December and Dendera, 7 December. In Nubia he drew the island of Philae, the kiosk called Pharaoh’s Bed, the temple of Dendur and the fortress of Ibrim. Several of these temples were later moved to save them from the waters of the Aswan dams, and Dendur now stands in New York.
Back in Cairo, Roberts got permission to draw inside the city’s mosques, which was rarely given to Europeans, and he spent weeks in the streets and bazaars. The Cairo plates are some of his liveliest: the Bab Zuwayla gate, the bazaar of the silk mercers, the coppersmiths’ bazaar, the entrance of the Sultan Hassan mosque and the letter writer. Our collection has 140 scenes of Egypt and Nubia. For other European painters of the Near East, see John Frederick Lewis, Prosper Marilhat, Jean-Léon Gérôme and Luigi Mayer.
Sinai, Petra and the Holy Land
In February 1839 Roberts left Cairo with a camel caravan and crossed the desert to St Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. He drew the chapels on the summit and the plain of El Raheh below. From there the party went north through the wilderness to Petra, the rock-cut city of the Nabataeans, which only a few Europeans had seen. Christie’s gives 6 March 1839 as the day they arrived; Roberts stayed about five days, and his drawings there became thirteen plates.
He reached Jerusalem in time for Easter 1839, then travelled through the Holy Land and up the coast of Lebanon: Bethlehem, looking towards the Dead Sea, Jenin, Sebaste, ancient Samaria, Sidon and the range of Lebanon and the cliffs of Ras el Abiad. The last great site was Baalbec, where the vast Roman temples of Jupiter and Bacchus stand in the Bekaa valley. In May 1839, back in Alexandria, he was received by Egypt’s ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha, a meeting he later turned into a plate.
He came home with three sketchbooks and more than 270 watercolours. Our collection has 13 scenes of Petra, Sinai, the Holy Land and Lebanon; it does not yet include his Jerusalem plates. Compare the Holy Land views of Edward Lear and William Holman Hunt.
The Holy Land Lithographs and Louis Haghe
Back in London, Roberts and the print publisher F. G. Moon planned a grand illustrated work, paid for in advance by about 400 subscribers. Queen Victoria was subscriber number one, and her complete set is still in the Royal Collection. Roberts chose the Belgian-born Louis Haghe, one of the leading lithographers in London, to draw his sketches onto stone. Haghe worked on them from 1842 to 1849.
The result, The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia, ran to 247 lithographs in six volumes: three for the Holy Land and three for Egypt and Nubia (1846–49), also sold as two separate works. Each plate was printed with one or more tint stones, giving the soft sand and sky colours, and the luxury edition was printed on India paper and mounted on card. Many surviving sets were later coloured by hand. Our prints come from these plates and from Roberts’s own drawings and oil paintings.
The plates fixed the look of ancient Egypt for a generation of readers. Even the title pages are works of art: see the frontispiece of the Abu Simbel façade and the Karnak gateway title vignette. For more prints made after artists’ drawings, see our illustration art prints.
Royal Academician: Italy, Venice and London
The East made Roberts famous. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1839 and a full Academician in 1841, and for the rest of his life he turned his sketches into large oil paintings such as the Egyptian Landscape with a Distant View of the Pyramids (1862). He also kept travelling. In 1851 and 1853 he toured Italy, and in 1859 published Italy, Classical, Historical and Picturesque. Our collection has 16 Italian views, among them the Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome from San Onofrio, the Roman Forum and the interior of Pisa Cathedral.
Venice suited him perfectly: see the Piazza of St Mark, Santa Maria della Salute and the Giudecca, and compare them with Canaletto and Francesco Guardi in our Venice art prints. At Queen Victoria’s command he painted the Inauguration of the Great Exhibition (shown in 1853), and in 1858 Edinburgh made him a freeman of the city.
His last project was a series of London views from the Thames: St Paul’s, the Tower of London, Westminster and the sunset view from Waterloo Bridge. On 25 November 1864 he collapsed in Berners Street, probably from a stroke, and died at home that evening. He is buried in West Norwood Cemetery in south London. See more in our cityscape art prints and river art prints.
Famous David Roberts Paintings and Lithographs
Below are the pictures to know, each with the matching print in our collection.
The Great Sphinx
The Sphinx head-on, drifted with sand, with two pyramids behind. Shop the print, or the side view.
Approach of the Simoom
A caravan crouches as a sandstorm rolls towards the Sphinx under a blood-red sun. Shop the print.
Abu Simbel
The colossi of Ramesses II half buried in sand. Shop the print, or the interior and sanctuary.
The Great Hall at Karnak
A forest of carved columns in the largest temple of Thebes. Shop the print, or Karnak at sunset.
Portico of the Temple of Philae
Roberts recorded the colour still on the stone. Shop the print.
Statues of Memnon
The two colossi of Amenhotep III standing in the Nile flood at sunset. Shop the print.
Petra
The rose-red city with its theatre and tombs. Shop the print, or the approach to Petra.
Bazaar of the Silk Mercers
Shoppers and traders under the high timber roof of a Cairo market. Shop the print, or the Bab Zuwayla gate.
What Our David Roberts Prints Show
Our David Roberts collection lists 238 prints. The chart groups them by place, and it shows how much the Egypt journey dominates: 140 of the 238 titles, well over half, come from Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile.
The Egypt plates are the best known, but there is plenty beyond them: 27 views of Britain, from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge to Durham Cathedral, the Gothic churches of France and Belgium such as Going to Mass, and pencil studies made on his tours.
Where to See David Roberts Paintings
Roberts’s oil paintings and watercolours are spread across British and American collections, and many libraries hold sets of the lithographs. Check each museum’s website before you travel, as works on paper are shown in rotation and paintings go on loan.
The main places to look:
Windsor · Royal Collection
The Royal Collection holds Queen Victoria’s subscriber’s set of the lithographs and Roberts’s oil A View in Cairo (1840).
London · Victoria and Albert Museum
The V&A has The Gate of Metawaley (1843), the oil version of the Cairo gate in our print, along with watercolours and drawings.
London · Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection has Chapel of Ferdinand and Isabella, Granada (1838) and Interior of Saint-Gommaire, Lierre (1850).
London · Guildhall Art Gallery
The Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London has The Forum, Rome (1859).
Edinburgh · National Galleries of Scotland
The National Galleries of Scotland hold paintings and drawings by Roberts, including Mont Saint Michel (1848).
Cambridge · Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum has The Doge’s Palace, Venice, from the Bacino di San Marco (1853).
New Haven · Yale Center for British Art
The Yale Center for British Art has The Church of the Jesuits, Grand Canal, Venice (1854) and copies of the lithograph volumes.
How to Decorate With David Roberts Prints
David Roberts prints bring warm sand, stone and sky colours to a room, and their fine detail rewards a close look. They suit dark wood, brass and leather as well as plain modern rooms. Frame the lithographs with a wide ivory or cream mat and a thin gold, walnut or black frame, as they would have been framed in a Victorian library.
- Make a travel wall. Hang the Sphinx, Abu Simbel, Petra and Baalbec in a grid in a hallway or study, like stops on his journey.
- Furnish a library or office. The tall Karnak columns, the Philae portico and the Sultan Hassan mosque suit bookshelves and a desk.
- Warm up a living room. The sunset Approach of the Simoom, Memnon in the flood and Karnak at sunset glow above a sofa.
- Bring Cairo’s streets home. The silk bazaar, the coffee shop and the letter writer make a lively set for a kitchen or dining room.
- Give a meaningful gift. Bethlehem, Mount Sinai or Edinburgh from the Calton Hill make thoughtful presents for travellers, pilgrims and Scots abroad.
For a gallery wall of architecture and travel, mix Roberts with Clarkson Stanfield, Samuel Prout, Thomas Allom and William James Müller.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was David Roberts?
David Roberts (1796–1864) was a Scottish painter of architecture and travel scenes. Born in Edinburgh, he began as a house painter and theatre scene painter, became a Royal Academician in 1841, and is best known for his drawings of Egypt, Nubia, Petra and the Holy Land, made on a journey in 1838–39.
What is David Roberts famous for?
For The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia, a series of 247 tinted lithographs made by Louis Haghe from his drawings and published from 1842 to 1849. Plates such as The Great Sphinx, Abu Simbel, the Great Hall at Karnak and Petra are among the best-known images of the Near East from the 19th century.
Who made the David Roberts lithographs?
Roberts made the drawings and watercolours on his travels; the Belgian-born lithographer Louis Haghe drew them onto the stones between 1842 and 1849, and F. G. Moon of London published them. Queen Victoria headed the list of about 400 subscribers.
Are David Roberts lithographs hand coloured?
They were printed in black with one or more tint stones, giving soft sand, stone and sky colours. A luxury edition was printed on India paper and mounted on card. Many sets were coloured by hand at the time or later, so surviving plates vary.
Did David Roberts visit Petra?
Yes. He reached Petra in early March 1839 with a caravan from Sinai, one of the first British artists to draw it, and stayed about five days. His Petra drawings became thirteen plates in the Holy Land volumes.
Where can I see David Roberts’s paintings?
In Britain, the Royal Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Wallace Collection, the Guildhall Art Gallery, the National Galleries of Scotland and the Fitzwilliam Museum hold his work. In the United States, the Yale Center for British Art has paintings and the lithograph volumes.
Where can I buy David Roberts art prints?
Artwork Culture sells archival wall art prints of 238 David Roberts works, in sizes from 4×6 to 40×60 inches. Browse the David Roberts collection or our architecture art prints.
Written by Artwork Culture. Image credits: all artwork images are Artwork Culture product photos of David Roberts prints. Dates and holdings follow Wikipedia’s David Roberts article (with its museum references), Wikidata Q369776, Christie’s and Wellcome Collection catalogue records for the lithographs, and the museums named above (October 2026); loans and rotations can move works, so confirm before you visit.