Holy Land and British Perceptions

Abstract

This chapter explores the personal, artistic and cultural context in the 1820s and 1830s that compelled the British artist David Roberts to travel through Egypt and the Holy Land in 1838–39, and that led to the commercial success of the volumes of lithographs produced from this venture. In the 1830s there was in Britain an intellectual, religious and political climate very conscious of the importance of the Near Eastern region. Protestant hymnody significantly influenced British perceptions of Jerusalem.