Roberts’s first continental tour was undertaken in 1832 when he visited Spain. In 1838-9 he travelled to Egypt and the Holy Land, and in the early 1850s twice made tours of Italy. He notably used his Near Eastern and Spanish studies as the basis for very successful lithographs and oil paintings. This drawing is thought to be a study of the Temple of Horus and Sobek at Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt, just south of Aswan.