A View in Cairo
1840 · Royal Collection, Windsor
landscapeThe artist visited the Near East in 1838-39, travelling extensively in Egypt and the Holy Land. Having begun his career as a house-painter and a painter of stage scenery, first in Scotland where he was born and then in England, Roberts established a reputation as a topographical artist during the 1820s, concentrating mainly on European views. The visit to the Near East was, according to Roberts's friend and first biographer, John Ballantine, the 'great central episode of his artistic life'.
