David Roberts RA (1796-1864) was a Scottish painter. He is especially known for a prolific series of detailed prints of Egypt and the Near East that he produced during the 1840s from sketches he made during long tours of the region (18381840). This work, and his large oil paintings of similar subjects, made him a prominent Orientalist painter. At the time of Robertsˇ visit to Palestine, the country was briefly under Egyptian rule (183141) after Mohammed Ali had seized the Levant (Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon) from the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans administered Palestine from Constantinople from 1516 to 1917.