Interior Of Seville Cathedral, Spain

Roberts's Interior of Seville Cathedral from 1833 captures the largest Gothic cathedral in the world—completed in the early sixteenth century on the site of the city's great mosque—during his Spanish tour of 1832-33. Seville Cathedral's interior was among the most spectacular spaces in Christian architecture, combining vast Gothic vaulting, the accumulated treasure of centuries of Spanish imperial wealth, and the specific quality of Andalusian light filtered through stained glass of exceptional richness. Roberts's Spanish tour was the most important preparatory journey of his career before his Egyptian expedition, and his Seville interior brought British audiences their most detailed and artistically accomplished image of a building that combined the grandeur of Gothic architecture with the historical resonance of Spain's conversion of Islamic Andalusia to Christianity.

The cathedral interior is rendered with attention to both the vast scale of the space and the intricate detail of the Gothic architecture. Roberts's handling of light filtering through the nave creates atmospheric depth, while small figures establish the building's overwhelming dimensions.