Lot Essay
The painting is one of the six views of Jerusalem to be painted by Roberts, four of which, including our picture, are on a monumental scale. The others are as follows: (1) Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, with Pilgrims returning from the River Jordan, 1841, 47 x 83in. Painted for Lord Monson, now at Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey (no. 65 in RHC cat., loc. cit.); (2) Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, with Pilgrims returning from the River Jordan, 1842, 32 1/8 x 59¾in. A smaller version of (1), painted for the Rev. W. B. Hurnard, whom Roberts met in Egypt. Now in the Norwich Castle Museum; (3) Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, 1855, 21½ x 36½in. In the collection of the Duke of Westminster by 1874, now in the Government Art Collection; (4) Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, 1860, 20 5/8 x 36in. Painted over an unfinished mezzotint of the Royal Holloway College version by David Lucas, laid down on canvas. Now in the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery; (5) Jerusalem (looking South), 1860, 48¼ x 72¼ in. Bought from the artist by Ernest Gambart, missing since 1950, but rediscovered and sold in these rooms on 25 October 1991, lot 1.
Roberts went to the East in 1838, leaving London on 21 August and reaching Alexandria on 24 September; he stayed in Egypt until 7 February 1839 when he left for a long journey on foot and camel to Jerusalem via Suez, Akaba, Petra, Hebron, Gaza and Jaffa (Tel Aviv), reaching Jerusalem on 28 March. However, he stayed only a few days before going on to Jericho, the Dead Sea, and Bethlehem; and although he returned to Jerusalem on 8 April, he again spent only a week there before leaving for the last part of his journey, which included Baalbec. He returned to England in October 1839.
Jerusalem was a deep disappointment to Roberts, who had long looked forward to seeing the Holy City. When he heard in Cairo that it was closed because of plague, he nearly gave up the whole of this part of his journey. He wrote in his Eastern Journal that he and his companions reached Jerusalem the very day that the quarantine was lifted and the barriers removed after almost a year. In spite of this, the city was very full for the Easter celebrations, and the party had some difficulty in finding lodgings. Roberts spent his first few days in the city looking at historic sites and watching the celebrations. He began to draw on his return from Bethlehem, but on 12 April he wrote: 'I begin to be very tired of Jerusalem, surely there cannot be any city more wretched. How has the mighty fallen! I have wandered over the hills today in the burning sun, to find a good view of the once mighty city, but without success, the walls being almost all that is visible; within them all is misery ...' On the next day he continued: 'The Sirocco or South Wind is raging here today; the whole atmosphere is impregnated with small particles of sand ... I have never had more uphill work than in sketching the various objects of interest about Jerusalem. The city within the walls may be called a desert, two thirds of it being a mass of ruins and cornfields; the remaining third ... being of such a paltry and contemptible character that no artist could render them interesting ..."
In spite of these difficulties, Roberts made enough drawings to form a basis for his six subsequent paintings of Jerusalem, although the problems he faced probably explain why they are all rather alike, or copies of one another. He also made a number of watercolours to be used later for the well-known series of lithographs executed by Louis Haghe for the publication usually known as Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land (1842-9). In this there are fourteen lithographs of the city within the walls and four from outside, showing Jerusalem from the road leading to Bethany, from the South, from the Mount of Olives, and from the North.
The present work was, in the words of Roberts' biographer James Ballantine, one of 'two very important pictures' which the artist showed at the Royal Academy in 1845, the other being an Egyptian view, Ruins of the Temple at Karnac. 'Mr Roberts, still in the East', wrote the art critic of the Athenaeum, 'is no less scenic than usual: but more solid, we think, in his colours, and in catching some aspects of Nature, unrivalled ... The Jerusalem (405), in the Middle Room, ... seems his most popular landscape, possibly owing to the subject, which will never cease to be sought for with eager and reverential curiosity.' A long account also appeared in the Art Union, explaining the topography. 'This large and valuable picture resembles in character the view of Jerusalem exhibited by Mr Roberts a few years ago [i.e. the Royal Holloway College picture, no. 1 above, which had appeared at the R.A. in 1841]. The view is taken from the lower part of the mount, and the composition derives life from some figures placed in immediate presence on a flat house-top on the left. The eye falls on the green acclivity which rises at some distance opposite, and is thence led to the site of the Temple of Solomon, now occupied by the most conspicuous edifice in the picture - the Mosque of Omar; and nearer the spectator is the Mosque El Aksa, which was originally a Christian church. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is seen in the distance on the left of the Mosque El Aksa, distinguishable by its dome and square tower; and low down on the right opens the valley of Jehoshaphat, where the Jews still bury, and where are the Garden of Gethsemane, the Tomb of the Virgin, etc. This view of Jerusalem is not historical art, but it is history itself, inasmuch as its details may be relied on as perfectly accurate - unflinching truth, uninfluenced by any trick of Art, being, as we believe, the object of the picture, which is painted with all the breadth of a full daylight effect, showing everywhere the architecture of the Osmanli, and bearing out the words, "Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens; our necks are under persecution; we labour and have no rest."'
The picture had been commissioned for 300 guineas by Lord Francis Egerton (1800-1859) of Worsley Hall, Lancashire, who was to become the first Earl of Ellesmere in 1846 and build Bridgwater House in London. His interest in the Middle East had already led him to sponsor W. J. Müller's extensive tour of the area in the late 1830s and to visit the Holy Land himself in 1840, the drawings he made on the journey being published lithographically the following year under the title Journal of a Tour in the Holy Land in May and June 1840. Lord Francis was an important patron for Roberts, not only purchasing the present picture but twenty-five of his drawings for the Jerusalem volume of Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land (1842) and later a further fifty-seven drawings of Syria. These drawings were sold at Christie's on 2 April 1870. Lot 9 was a view of Jerusalem from the South which Jeannie Chapel, in her catalogue of the Royal Holloway College pictures (loc. cit.), describes as a 'study(?)' for the present picture.
Roberts went to the East in 1838, leaving London on 21 August and reaching Alexandria on 24 September; he stayed in Egypt until 7 February 1839 when he left for a long journey on foot and camel to Jerusalem via Suez, Akaba, Petra, Hebron, Gaza and Jaffa (Tel Aviv), reaching Jerusalem on 28 March. However, he stayed only a few days before going on to Jericho, the Dead Sea, and Bethlehem; and although he returned to Jerusalem on 8 April, he again spent only a week there before leaving for the last part of his journey, which included Baalbec. He returned to England in October 1839.
Jerusalem was a deep disappointment to Roberts, who had long looked forward to seeing the Holy City. When he heard in Cairo that it was closed because of plague, he nearly gave up the whole of this part of his journey. He wrote in his Eastern Journal that he and his companions reached Jerusalem the very day that the quarantine was lifted and the barriers removed after almost a year. In spite of this, the city was very full for the Easter celebrations, and the party had some difficulty in finding lodgings. Roberts spent his first few days in the city looking at historic sites and watching the celebrations. He began to draw on his return from Bethlehem, but on 12 April he wrote: 'I begin to be very tired of Jerusalem, surely there cannot be any city more wretched. How has the mighty fallen! I have wandered over the hills today in the burning sun, to find a good view of the once mighty city, but without success, the walls being almost all that is visible; within them all is misery ...' On the next day he continued: 'The Sirocco or South Wind is raging here today; the whole atmosphere is impregnated with small particles of sand ... I have never had more uphill work than in sketching the various objects of interest about Jerusalem. The city within the walls may be called a desert, two thirds of it being a mass of ruins and cornfields; the remaining third ... being of such a paltry and contemptible character that no artist could render them interesting ..."
In spite of these difficulties, Roberts made enough drawings to form a basis for his six subsequent paintings of Jerusalem, although the problems he faced probably explain why they are all rather alike, or copies of one another. He also made a number of watercolours to be used later for the well-known series of lithographs executed by Louis Haghe for the publication usually known as Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land (1842-9). In this there are fourteen lithographs of the city within the walls and four from outside, showing Jerusalem from the road leading to Bethany, from the South, from the Mount of Olives, and from the North.
The present work was, in the words of Roberts' biographer James Ballantine, one of 'two very important pictures' which the artist showed at the Royal Academy in 1845, the other being an Egyptian view, Ruins of the Temple at Karnac. 'Mr Roberts, still in the East', wrote the art critic of the Athenaeum, 'is no less scenic than usual: but more solid, we think, in his colours, and in catching some aspects of Nature, unrivalled ... The Jerusalem (405), in the Middle Room, ... seems his most popular landscape, possibly owing to the subject, which will never cease to be sought for with eager and reverential curiosity.' A long account also appeared in the Art Union, explaining the topography. 'This large and valuable picture resembles in character the view of Jerusalem exhibited by Mr Roberts a few years ago [i.e. the Royal Holloway College picture, no. 1 above, which had appeared at the R.A. in 1841]. The view is taken from the lower part of the mount, and the composition derives life from some figures placed in immediate presence on a flat house-top on the left. The eye falls on the green acclivity which rises at some distance opposite, and is thence led to the site of the Temple of Solomon, now occupied by the most conspicuous edifice in the picture - the Mosque of Omar; and nearer the spectator is the Mosque El Aksa, which was originally a Christian church. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is seen in the distance on the left of the Mosque El Aksa, distinguishable by its dome and square tower; and low down on the right opens the valley of Jehoshaphat, where the Jews still bury, and where are the Garden of Gethsemane, the Tomb of the Virgin, etc. This view of Jerusalem is not historical art, but it is history itself, inasmuch as its details may be relied on as perfectly accurate - unflinching truth, uninfluenced by any trick of Art, being, as we believe, the object of the picture, which is painted with all the breadth of a full daylight effect, showing everywhere the architecture of the Osmanli, and bearing out the words, "Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens; our necks are under persecution; we labour and have no rest."'
The picture had been commissioned for 300 guineas by Lord Francis Egerton (1800-1859) of Worsley Hall, Lancashire, who was to become the first Earl of Ellesmere in 1846 and build Bridgwater House in London. His interest in the Middle East had already led him to sponsor W. J. Müller's extensive tour of the area in the late 1830s and to visit the Holy Land himself in 1840, the drawings he made on the journey being published lithographically the following year under the title Journal of a Tour in the Holy Land in May and June 1840. Lord Francis was an important patron for Roberts, not only purchasing the present picture but twenty-five of his drawings for the Jerusalem volume of Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land (1842) and later a further fifty-seven drawings of Syria. These drawings were sold at Christie's on 2 April 1870. Lot 9 was a view of Jerusalem from the South which Jeannie Chapel, in her catalogue of the Royal Holloway College pictures (loc. cit.), describes as a 'study(?)' for the present picture.