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 Roberts 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.