David Roberts RA (British, 1796-1864) The Tombs of the Mamelukes, Cairo

Footnotes

Provenance
Property from a Princely Collection, acquired at Sotheby's, Important British Watercolours, 5 June 2008, lot 270.


For another view of the same subject, see Christie's, Old Masters Part II: Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings and Watercolours, 3rd July 2024, lot 273.

David Roberts was in Egypt from September 1838 until February 1839 before travelling on to Palestine and the Lebanon. He returned to London in July of that year having filled three sketchbooks and executed over 270 drawings. He worked these up into a set of finished watercolours which were published as a set of lithographs between 1842 and 1849. The view here was published as a lithograph in Egypt and Nubia, London 1846-49, vol. III, plate 97, with the title Tombs of the Caliphs, Cairo: The Citadel in the Distance. It shows the Northern Cemetery with its principal monuments, the minaret and dome of the mosque-tomb of Sultan Qaytbay, completed in 1474.

He visited the site for the first time on 23rd December 1838, recording in his journal:

The singular beauty of this scene cannot fail to strike the observer: the form and enrichment of the dome, and the elegance of the minaret of the principal mosque, that of the Sultan Kaitbey, the square masses of such parts of the structure as are not yet in ruins, combine with the other mosques and the citadel in the background to complete a composition of objects almost without rival for the picturesque effect which, in this point of view, they produce.

On Christmas Eve he wrote: 'This is a city unequalled in the world for the picturesque and it is hitherto untrodden ground.' Then on 1st January 1839 he wrote: 'No one in looking over my Sketches will ever think of the pain and trouble I have had to contend with in collecting them. Well, so long as they add to the general knowledge already acquired of the various styles of architecture existing in different ages... I am well satisfied'.