Roberts, David; Rev. George Croly.

The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia after lithographs by Louis Haghe from drawings made on the spot by David Roberts, R.A. with historical descriptions by the Revd George Croly, L.L.D. vol. I [vol. II, vol. 3, vol. IV, vol. V, vol. VI].

“THE FINEST ILLUSTRATED TRAVEL BOOK OF THE 19^TH CENTURY”

THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE TINTED LITHOGRAPH

6 volumes bound in 3. London: Day & Son Lithographers to the Queen, 1855–1856. First quarto edition.

Quarto (11 ¼” x 8 3/16”, 287mm x 208mm):
Volume I: binder’s blank, [6] (dedication, blank, list of subjects, 3pp. history of Roberts’s travels) 1 2–35 [4] (blank, 2pp. armorial ensign of Jerusalem, explanation of the title-page vignette). With a lithographed frontispiece, a lithographed title-page, and 42 tinted lithographs, each with an explanatory page of text.
Volume II: [2] (list of subjects, blank) 1 2–3 [2] (blank, explanation of the title-page vignette). With a lithographed title-page and 42 tinted lithographs, each with an explanatory page of text.
Volume III: [1] (list of subscribers) 1 2–3. With a lithographed title-page, 1 lithographed map, and 36 tinted lithographs, each with an explanatory page of text.
Volume IV: [2] (list of subscribers, blank) 1 2–9 [1] (blank). With a lithographed title-page and 42 tinted lithographs, each with an explanatory page of text.
Volume V: [2] (list of subjects, blank). With a lithographed title-page, 1 lithographed map, and 42 tinted lithographs, each with an explanatory page of text.
Volume VI: [1] (list of subscribers). With a lithographed title-page and 37 tinted lithographs, each with an explanatory page of text.
With 250 tinted lithographed plates in toto.

Bound in lapis buckram boards with the armorial ensigns of Jerusalem gilt to the boards of each volume. On the spine, title gilt to second panel and regions described in the volume gilt to the fourth. All edges of the text-block gilt.

Light rubbing to the extremities. Cracking to the hinges, skillfully repaired where necessary. Foxed and toned. Dampstaining to the upper fore-corner of the frontispiece and engraved title page. Gift inscription, “S. Abington Veesey / from her beloved Father / 1867” to the recto of the flyleaf in each volume. Conservator’s ticket to the rear pastedown of volume I, completed in manuscript “Oct 1990.”


David Roberts (1796–1864) was the first professional artist of the West to visit and document the Near East without a patron, connection to a military expedition, or missionary motives. In his youth, Roberts had apprenticed as a house painter in his hometown of Edinburgh, and, with proven technical skill, he secured a contract with a traveling circus as a theatrical scene painter. Throughout his decade in the trade, Roberts simultaneously exhibited his landscape, architectural, and historical paintings throughout Europe was able to support himself as a full-time fine artist by 1829. After a stint in Spain, Roberts refocused his interest on the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa and set sail for Alexandria in 1838.

For eleven months, Roberts traveled up the Nile River, across deserts and mountains, through Egypt and the Holy Land, to arrive in Jerusalem on Easter 1839. Roberts recorded his impressions of landscapes, temples, ruins, and people in three sketchbooks and more than 272 watercolors. As he says in his preface for The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, & Nubia, "I may not have done them justice, but few artists of my standing could afford more time, and I daresay few could have produced more in the same number of days." As the first British artist to sketch the monuments of Ancient Egypt, Roberts was well aware of the stir his drawings would create in London. According to John Ruskin’s Praeterita, Roberts's drawings "were the first studies ever made conscientiously by an English painter, not to exhibit his own skill, but to give true portraiture of scenes of historical and religious interest." The colossal subjects and broad vistas were ideally suited to Roberts's background in the theatre, and his depictions were dutifully transferred to the stone by Louis Haghe. Haghe was recognized as the most prolific lithographer of his time; he had moved to England to establish himself as specialist of the hand-tinted lithograph, and his sensitive handling of the levigators and abrasives imparts a delicate range of tonality and preserved the spontaneous quality of Roberts's original images. Of the prints, Ruskin notes that “they are faithful and laborious beyond any outlines from nature I have ever seen.”

Originally published in 41 parts over 7 years in large folio, the set was available to subscribers in a deluxe hand-colored format mounted on card, proofs in portfolio, and a single-tint option. A testament to the publication’s staying power, the quarto edition was released in 1855, and, with plates reduced by photography, the set maintains the grandeur of the previous decade’s folios. To the present-day, Robert’s Holy Land endures as one of the most desirable and coveted travel and plate books in the history of fine printing.

Abbey Travel 388; Blackmer 1432.

Cataloged by G.R. Murdock

Item #GRM0099

Price: $7,400