Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Leggatt Brothers, London
  Private collection, UK
  
  EXHIBITED:
  London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd., Spring Exhibition, 14 April (year unknown)
  
  Roberts made this watercolour on his travels through Sinai in February 1839. On his return home, he worked up another version of the view (now at Bowood House, Calne, Wiltshire) for the lithographer, Louis Haghe. This was published with the title Approach to Mount Sinai. Wady Barah, as Plate 122 in Volume III of the series of two hundred and forty seven lithographs that comprised The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia, issued between 1842 and 1849.
  
  Roberts toured Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1838 and 1839. In his journal (now in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh) Roberts described the valleys through which he and his party passed between Suez and the Convent of St Catherine. On 17th February he wrote: 'Ascending to the top of the narrow valley in which we had encamped, Mount Sinai burst upon our views in all its grandeur, and here we met for the first time with an Arab encampment, surrounded by flocks of sheep and goats'.
  
  We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.

---

Category: Fine Art / 19th Century Paintings

---

Auction terms and conditions