David Roberts | Items for sale, auction results and history

David Roberts epitomised the successful topographical artist of the early and mid-19th century in Britain. Perhaps the most extensively travelled and ventured the furthest afield of his time, Roberts gave shape to the sceneries and people he encountered in his portfolio.

Roberts was born in 1796 in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. He began his artistic journey as an apprentice to a house painter and later as a scene painter for the theatre between 1816 and 1830. Roberts continued this line of work when he moved to London in the early 1820s. The artist exhibited his first easel painting in London in 1824 and at the Royal Academy in 1826.

Roberts’s true passion, however, lay in travel and the depiction of far-off lands. He embarked on numerous journeys across Europe, visiting Spain, France, and the Middle East. His travels provided a wealth of material for his art, and he became particularly famous for his detailed and evocative renderings of Middle Eastern architecture and landscapes.

In 1838, Roberts undertook an extensive expedition to Egypt and the Holy Land, a journey that would become a defining moment in his career. As the first independent, professional British artist to travel so extensively in Egypt and the Holy Land, Roberts knew that he was returning with ‘one of the richest folios that ever left the East’. 

He was confident that his Victorian public would find irresistible the combination of famous ancient monuments, elaborate Islamic mosques and the landscapes of the Holy Land, redolent of the scenes and events of the Bible. So it proved, for not only did his oil paintings receive critical acclaim, but when the 247 coloured lithographs executed by Louis Haghe from Roberts’s drawings were published in a series of monthly parts, between 1842 and 1849, they too were a resounding success. In recognition of his contributions to art, Roberts was elected as a member of the Royal Academy in 1841.

David Roberts died in London in 1864. Though there were many British artists, like Roberts, who travelled abroad to document life away from the familiar, Roberts differentiated himself as he was not accompanying or supported by a wealthy patron, and nor was he sent by a publisher of the numerous illustrated travel books that were then appearing. His journey represents a new type of tour for professional artists who could travel to Egypt and the Holy Land in the knowledge that the novelty and biblical associations of their subjects would resonate strongly with their public and find a ready market. Many artists, encouraged by his success, followed in his footsteps.