David Roberts, R.A.

With the Leicester Galleries, London;

sale, London, Christie's, 2 July 2013, lot 86,

where acquired by the present owner

Between December 1832 and October 1833 David Roberts travelled extensively in Spain. By late April he had reached Jerez, a town famous for its sherry, which is positioned in between Cadiz and Seville in Andalusia. By the 4^th of May Roberts had moved on to Seville where he reported to a friend, via letter, that he had 'stopt [sic] some days in Jerez… It is like most of the other towns of Andalusia of Moorish origin if not Roman... After viewing their immense cellars and tasting Sherrys in perfection I took my leave...'¹

The church of San Miguel was constructed between the 15^th and 18^th centuries and is famed for its rich interior. The present drawing shows this magnificence and is dated to the 29^th April.² Another version of this composition, dated 1834 and published as an engraving two years later, survives in the British Museum.³ A third variant, made for translation into a lithograph by Thomas Shotter Boys and published in Picturesque Sketches in Spain (1837) was sold in these rooms on 19 November 1981 (lot 210).

We are very grateful to Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz for her help when cataloguing this lot.

^1.National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

^2.Although Roberts certainly made the pencil element of this drawing in the church itself, it is quite possible that he worked in colour at a later date.

^3.British Museum, acc. no. 1900,0824.532