John Singer Sargent was only one of the many artists, from all other Europe and even America, to visit the exotic Middle East. The land of mystique for Sargent, Arabia, was only one of the many destinations in the Middle East. There are several reasons for the surge of interest in the Middle East during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The popularity of the Arabian Nights, one of the novels that strongly influenced Sargent himself (Kilmurray and Ormond 18), helped ignite the trend for exoticism. The passion for Egyptology and Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 journey to Egypt in heightened the attractiveness of the Middle East to Europeans: illustrated albums and Napoleonic paintings of Eastern settings offered visual, in addition to verbal, inspiration (Thornton 5). These, in addition to France’s taking of Algiers in 1830 and Eugène Delacroix’s expedition to Morocco in 1832, all helped to encourage artists to explore the Middle East (Thornton 5).
The following are all, like Sargent, artists leaving England to discover for themselves the lure of the Middle East. Unlike Sargent, however, they did not travel to Arabia, and rather, explored other parts of the region that interested them. Each has his own “story to tell, of travel and adventure, sights and customs…of the gradual lifting of the veils of myth and mystery in which the Orient [Middle East] had been shrouded” (Thorton 5). With each journey, the layers of romanticism and mystery that surrounds the region begins to peel, to reveal a tangible land rich in culture and humanity.
Charles Robertson (1844-1891): After hearing of the potentials for young artists in Algeria, Charles Robertson journeyed to North Africa in 1862; he was eighteen. He seems to have caught the traveling bug, making several subsequent journeys, to Turkey and the Holy Land in 1872, Egypt and Tangiers in 1876, and to Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Turkey, Italy, and Spain in 1889. 
Robertson painted not only everyday street scenes and landscapes that he passed, but also imaginary works, including illustrations from the Arabian Nights. (Thornton 158-59)
A Carpet Sale, Cairo (not dated) is a depiction of everyday market scenes. The extreme detail on the carpets signifies the artistic interest of Robertson; he not only wanted to capture the daily life, but also the art styles and patterns of Egypt. This acute observation and recording was one of the many pieces of information brought back to England, and would consequently, inflict some influence on patterns and design there.
Robert Talbot Kelly (1861-1934):
Robert Talbot Kelly, like Robertson, also made an expedition to North Africa; he became quite enamored with Egypt and settled in a studio in Cairo. He became fluent in Arabic and in 1902, had published his book Egypt Painted and Described by. R. Talbot Kelly. By this time, he had established his reputation as an artist and traveler, and received commissions from the upper-class, who visited his studio as part of their tour of Egypt. (Thornton 168-169)
In the Mosque (1897), painted in Cairo, emphasizes the relationship between man and religion; in the painting, some men are bowing, while others are raising their hands in reverence. From this choice of subject matter, we can see that Kelly choice to explore aspects that were important to the Egyptians, not what is interesting to him, an outsider.
This exploration by Robertson and Kelly, who were just a couple of the many artists who journeyed to the Middle East, of new culture and a different religion shows that each artists unveiled a different facet of the culture of the land where they stayed. While there were probably artists who idealized the Middle East, A Carpet Sale, Cairo and In the Mosque prove that artists were not blinded by the so-called romance of the Middle East, and were instead, willing to observe and record the culture of the land.