The Great Temple of Aboo Simbel, Nubia

‘The Great Temple of Aboo Simbel, Nubia’. F. G. Moon, 20 Threadneedle Street, London, 1842–49.

One of the signature and most sought-after plates from Roberts’ Egypt and Nubia, showing the monumental rock-cut temple complex of Ramesses II in Nubia, at the second cataract of the Nile (the interior of which contains numerous inscriptions relating to the Battle of Kadesh fought against the Hittite Empire in the early 13th century BC). The entire temple complex was moved, stone by stone, in the 1960s to save it from the waters of Lake Nasser, created by the construction of the Aswan Dam.

Roberts travelled extensively through the Near East in 1838–39, producing hundreds of sketches which he would later work up into finished drawings, watercolours and, in some instances, oil paintings, which served as the basis for the lithographs produced by the Dutch lithographer Louis Haghe. The original folio publication in the 1840s was in two formats: 1) The Royal Subscription Edition (RSE), in which all of the tinted lithographs were printed on thin paper mounted to card and hand-coloured in watercolour to the specifications of Roberts’ originals. 2) The more plentiful Standard Edition (SE), in which the tinted lithographs were printed directly on thick paper and issued uncoloured, with the option of additional hand-colouring to be added later at the discretion of the purchaser. A few plates, such as the Approach of the Simoon, were polychromatic lithographs, printed in both formats using a multiplicity of stones, though later hand-colouring of highlights is often found in these as well.

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