Interior of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem

Interior of the Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem is a watercolour on paper by the German painter Carl Friedrich Heinrich Werner, signed and dated 1863 and probably painted in Palestine; it is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Born in Weimar in 1808, Werner first studied painting in Leipzig and then architecture in Munich under Friedrich von Gärtner before committing himself to painting in 1831. A travel grant took him to Italy, where he spent many years and made his name as a watercolourist; he also exhibited regularly in London and other European cities. From 1856 he was based in Leipzig again and undertook long journeys abroad, including Spain in 1856–57 and Palestine and Egypt between 1862 and 1864, and from 1882 he taught watercolour at the Leipzig academy.

The Dome of the Rock was built by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik in 687–691. The shrine encloses the rock from which, in Islamic tradition, Muhammad ascended to heaven, and the rock is also revered in Jewish tradition as the place where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac. Werner was one of the few non-Muslims of his time able to gain access to paint the interior. The V&A links the precision of his polished marble columns, inlaid stonework and striped arches to his architectural training.

The sheet measures 50.3 by 34.7 cm. Werner reproduced the composition as a colour lithograph titled Interior of the Mosque of Omar, plate 24 of the 32 in his book Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Holy Places, published in London in 1865–66. The watercolour later belonged to the collector Rodney Searight, who bought it from the dealers Abbott & Holder in January 1965; the V&A acquired it with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Art Fund, Shell International and the Friends of the V&A.