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The surroundings and monuments of Egypt and Holy Land had been fashionable but had hitherto been hardly touched by British artists, and so Roberts rapidly accumulated four hundred subscription commitments, with Queen Victoria being subscriber No. 1. Her full set continues to be in the Royal Collection. Roberts made an extended tour in Egypt, Nubia, the Sinai, the Holy Land, Jordan and Lebanon. On his return to Britain, Roberts labored with lithographer Louis Haghe from 1842 to 1849 to produce the lavishly illustrated plates of The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia, originally published as Sketches within the Holy Land and Syria, 1842-1849 and Egypt & Nubia sequence.
Roberts set sail for Egypt on 31 August 1838, a number of years after Owen Jones. He later reproduced this scene, apparently from reminiscence, in Quantity 3 of Egypt & Nubia. Egypt was much in vogue at the moment, and travellers, collectors and lovers of antiquities had been eager to purchase works impressed by the East or depicting the nice monuments of historic Egypt. Caminer, David, John Aris, Peter Hermon and Frank Land (eds). Roberts, David, File E-book, 1829-1864, unpublished manuscript, Yale Heart for British Artwork, New Haven. forabadtimecall.com , David, Jap Journal, 1838-1839, unpublished manuscript, Nationwide Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Upon Roberts's return to Edinburgh in 1840, his fellow-artist, Robert Scott Lauder, painted his portrait.
His last quantity of illustrations, Italy, Classical, Historical and Picturesque, was printed in 1859. In 1839 he was elected an associate and in 1841 a full member of the Royal Academy; and in 1858 he was introduced with the liberty of the city of Edinburgh. In 1851, and once more in 1853, Roberts visited Italy, painting the Ducal Palace, Venice, purchased by Lord Londesborough, the Interior of the Basilica of St Peters, Rome, Christmas Day, 1853, and Rome from the Convent of St Onofrio, offered to the Royal Scottish Academy. Muhammad Ali Pasha received Roberts in Alexandria on sixteen Might 1839, shortly earlier than his return to the UK.
