One of the features characteristic of romanticism all over Europe was an interest in the exotic Orient which was first roused by literature soon to be accompanied by painting. Count Antal Ligeti visited biblical places through István Károlyi in 1857: he travelled to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, drew cedar trees in Lebanon (he even took seeds with himself to make the flora of Károlyi's park in Fót richer), then he went to Alexandria, Cairo and Baalbek. He is believed to be the first Hungarian artist who expressed his shocking experiences of the Holy Land on paper. His drawings were published in newspapers and magazines as illustrations to articles of various nature. On his return to Hungary, he painted oil pictures on the basis of his drawings. Oasis in Desert is the first of a series of several oil pictures where he portrayed Oriental landscapes exotic to Hungarians without the artist's excitement. Only the subject of the pictures can be considered as romantic, the style of painting is rather academic, yet his contemporaries accepted them with enthusiasm. Ligeti exhibited Palm Trees in the Sahara in the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1862 which had been displayed in Buda previously. The picture was bought for a gallery in England by the Austrian government.