Roberts, David

Roberts's Sketches in the Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia London Francis Graham Moon 1842 Large folio (61,5 x 44 cm), total of 60 plates: a series of 57 large tinted lithographs, by Louis Haghe, after drawings by David ROBERTS. Only 3 text lvs, each with a text illustration (= 3 half-page plates). The plates are not numbered, only 13 plates have titles printed beneath the images, the other ones only have a description lithographed in handwriting (proof plates). Some variable marginal foxing, 2 lithographs have narrower margins, about 14 lithographs have a trace of damp staining in the margin. Loose, in a modern folder. Our series is not complete, but the present images represent Baalbec, Petra, Nubia, Cairo and many popular and famous locations in Egypt. We don't have the views of Jerusalem. Roberts recorded his impressions of landscapes, temples, ruins, and people in three sketchbooks and more than 272 watercolors. These sketches and paintings provided the basis for the 247 lithographs published with text between 1842 and 1849 as the three-volume "Holy Land." The images were produced by Louis HAGHE, the best and most prolific lithographer of the time. Originally from Tournai, Belgium, Haghe moved to England before 1825 and established himself as specialist of the hand-tinted lithograph. His sensitive handling of the lithographer's tools imparts a range of tonality and color as well as a sense of the delicacy and spontaneous quality of Roberts's original images. Roberts's plates are among the most popular images of famous sites in the Near East First edition of the artist's monumental depictions of the Middle East. Inspired by his love of artistic adventure ROBERTS departed for Alexandria in August 1839. For the rest of that year he visited Cairo and the neighbouring sites. In February 1840, set out across the Sinai for Palestine by way of Suez, Mount Sinai and Petra, arriving in Gaza, and then concluding his tour in Jerusalem. According to Abbey (who quotes from Moon's prospectus of 1840), the work was originally issued in 41 parts over seven years. "Roberts's Holy Land was one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth-century publishing, and it was the apotheosis of the tinted lithography... Whatever may be thought of the work as a whole... there is pleasure to be had from many of the individual plates, where Haghe's skillful and delicate lithography, and his faithful interpretation of Roberts's draughtmanship and dramatic sense, coming in what are undoubtedly remarkable examples of tinted lithographic work..." (Martin Hardie) Ref. Abbey, Travel II, 385 ; Lipperheide 1540; Tooley 401