David Roberts RA
Fountain of Cana
First Edition lithograph
Half plate: 33
Presented in a acid free mount
Modern hand-coloured lithograph for the first edition of David Roberts' The Holy Land.
Published by F.G. Moon & Son, London 1842-49.
According to his journal, Roberts left Nazareth at 11 o'clock on Sunday the 21st of April 1839 and ‘after a pleasant ride of an hour and one half, arrived at Cana of Galilee, a village consisting of 40 or 50 houses most of them in ruins. There is a small Greek church, said to cover the place formerly occupied by the house in which the marriage took place, where an old man showed us what he called the identical jar in which water was turned into wine.’ The miracle is described in St John 2: I-II and is often cited at modern-day Christian wedding ceremonies.
In this lithograph, Roberts depicts the fountain being used for its original purpose, with both men and women in the process of collecting water for their homes.