Malaga. / D Roberts 1836

Title

Malaga. / D Roberts 1836

Description

View shows the city of Málaga with ships in front. Above the city is the Alcazaba, a Moorish fortress and palace complex.

ca. 1837

Artist

Roberts (1796-1864)

David Roberts is one of the most important vedute painters of the 19th century. Thematically, his work can be partially assigned to orientalism. In 1832, on the advice of a friend, Roberts traveled to Spain, where he got to know almost all of the big cities and drew a large number of ruins and monuments. In 1837 a selection of these vedute appeared under the title Picturesque Sketches of Spain. This publication did not make him rich because his publisher had betrayed him, but it was the basis for his permanent international reputation and gave him the acquaintance of the talented Belgian engraver Louis Haghe. Robert's two-year stay in Spain, which had taken him to Tangier, evidently reinforced his latent interest in the Orient. In any case, after lengthy preparations, in August 1838 he set out on the trip to Egypt, which was to make him famous even after his death. For three months Roberts was on a rented ship on the Nile as far as Nubia and Abu Simbel and visited all important archaeological sites. He even managed to be the first European to step inside a mosque and draw. In the further course of his journey to Jerusalem, and from there to Lebanon, he suffered a persistent fever in Baalbek, which prevented him from continuing his journey. Finally, on May 13, 1839, Roberts started his journey home from Beirut. After Roberts had found the publisher Francis Graham Moon, all 247 lithographs of the journey to the Orient between 1842 and 1849 by the Belgian engraver Louis Haghe were published in six volumes in London. In 1841 Roberts became a full member of the Royal Academy and resumed his travel activities. David Roberts died in London on November 25, 1864 at the age of 68 and was buried in Norwood Cemetery.

Historical Description

In prehistoric and prehistoric times, Iberians, Celts and Basques settled on the Iberian peninsula named after the former. In the 11th century BC The Phoenicians settled on the south coast; the most famous of their colonies was Cadiz. The name Spain is derived from the Roman name Hispania (from Phoenician ishapan "land of the rock hyrax". In the early 8th century, the Moors destroyed the Visigoth Empire and conquered the entire Iberian Peninsula. Their centuries of rule shaped the country. The Arabic heritage was reflected in both the architecture and the language. However, the Moors were unable to establish themselves permanently in the northern outskirts of the peninsula. From there the "Reconquest" (Reconquista) started. In this process, which spanned several centuries (722–1492) and was not continuous, the Muslim empires were gradually pushed back by the Christian empires until the fall of Granada in 1492, the last Moorish state structure on the peninsula also disappeared. In the 15th century, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united. Aragon was an important maritime power in the Mediterranean at that time. The Spanish colonial empire extended around 1600 across large parts of South and Central America, the southern part of today's USA and the Philippines. As the English and French also intensified their colonial efforts, Spain gradually lost its supremacy. The liberation wars of the American states, particularly the Mexican and South American wars of independence in the early 19th century, brought independence to most of the colonies. In 1898, the last major properties were lost to the United States during the Spanish-American War, which meant the end of the colonial empire. The African colonies that followed later (Spanish-Morocco, Spanish-Sahara and Equatorial Guinea) finally became independent in the 20th century.