David Roberts’ magnificent painting of the destruction of Jerusalem

David Roberts (1796–1864) was a Scottish painter who in the late 1830’s traveled extensively in the Levant and Egypt documenting “Orientalist” sites in drawings and watercolors. Together with the lithographer Louis Haghe, he marketed his work to a public eager for exotic scenes. Queen Victoria was one of his first customers. Among Roberts’s paintings was a massive 1849 work, The Destruction of Jerusalem. While the original has mysteriously disappeared from public view since a 1961 auction, a rare large lithograph of it in the collection of New York’s Yeshiva University Museum, on display until August 28, provides a good idea of its style and contents.

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2011/8/8/main-feature/1/mourning-memory-and-art/e