David Roberts was the first British artist to travel to the Middle East, and he provided the British public with views of the Orient that were entirely new to them. Roberts particularly relished painting the mosques of Cairo during his visit to Egypt in 1838. This view shows the district of Bab Zuweyleh (also known as Metawalea) with the fifteenth-century minarets of the mosque of Sultan Mu’ayyad Shaykh towering above one of the three medieval gates leading into the city. Purchased by Queen Victoria for 100 guineas at the Royal Academy in 1840