Knights' museum offers early view of Holy Land through lithographs

Published: 2004-11-17

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (CNS) -- With its newest exhibit, the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven is taking visitors on a trip to the Holy Land by way of the astonishing 19th-century lithographs of David Roberts. Timed for the Christmas season, the exhibit "Jerusalem and the Holy Land Rediscovered" runs through Jan. 9. The 90 prints transport visitors not only to Jerusalem, but also to timeless towns such as Nazareth and Bethlehem, to enduring sights along the road to Galilee, and to Petra and Sinai. Mary Lou Cummings, the museum's curator, called Roberts' prints "one of the most remarkable sets of lithographs ever to be produced in the art world." They attracted the public's interest even before they were released from 1842 to 1844 because these were the first detailed pictures of the Holy Land and Near East that Westerners had seen. The prints, on loan from the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, N.C., come from a rare edition that is in extraordinary condition. They look as if they were just produced.

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