Lot 64
Roberts, David
Egypt & Nubia
Auction: Other Properties | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 63 to 255
Description
… with historical descriptions by William Brockedon. London: F. G. Moon, 1846-9. First edition, 3 volumes in 2, large folio (61.4 x 42.8cm), contemporary purple half morocco gilt, purple pebble-grain cloth covers, upper covers lettered in gilt ‘Sketches in Egypt and Nubia by D. Roberts R.A.', all edges gilt, 124 tinted lithographs by Louis Haghe after David Roberts, including 3 pictorial title pages and 60 half-page and 61 full-page plates, engraved map, tissue-guards, scattered spotting and occasional dust-staining, pale marking to cloth on the upper cover of vol. 2, [Abbey Travel 272; Ray, The Illustrator and the Book in England from 1790 to 1914, 88] (2)
Footnote
A handsomely bound copy of one of the most important and extensive visual records of Egypt in print, covering its monuments from the ancient and Islamic eras, and the urban life of Cairo in the artist's own day. Together with its companion work, The Holy Land (1842-9), it has been celebrated as ‘one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth-century publishing … and the apotheosis of the tinted lithograph’ (Abbey), and 'the most ambitious and impressive of English books illustrated with lithographs’ (Ray). The numbering on the spines of this copy suggests that it was acquired as a standalone work at or near to the date of publication.
Scottish artist David Roberts travelled to the east in 1838, the year of his appointment to the Royal Academy, initially visiting Alexandria, Cairo and the pyramids at Giza before sailing up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel. On his return journey north he stopped at sites including Karnak and Luxor, and once back in Cairo concerned himself with the city's streets and mosques, before continuing to the Holy Land. 'No publication before this had presented so comprehensive a series of views of the monuments, landscape, and people of the Near East' (ODNB).