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Report Case Study 25 Annex B Case 27 (2015-16) Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) Statement of Expert Adviser to the Secretary of State that the Arab robes once owned by T E Lawrence Meets Waverley criteria 1 and 3 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Description: The objects in question are two items of male clothing made of off-white silk lined in white cotton and embellished with crocheted silk buttons, closures and trims. They comprise a long-sleeved robe or coat (zebun) open at the front and measuring 103 x 35cm, and a matching short waistcoat measuring 46 x 32cm. The garments date to around 1916-1919 and are in very good condition apart from some staining under the arms and on the bottom front. The maker is unknown but they were most likely produced in Mecca or Medina. The garments once belonged to TE Lawrence (1888-1935), also known as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence would have worn the pieces over a long tunic (thob) and on formal occasions he would have donned an embroidered cloak (aba’) made of fine wool or camel hair over the whole ensemble. He would have completed the outfit with traditional Arab headgear (a head-cloth and head-rope) and worn a belted dagger (jambiya) around his waist. Provenance: It is uncertain when Lawrence purchased these garments or, indeed, if they were the ones he wore in 1916 on his early visits to Emir Feisal (third son of Sherif Hussein, who later became ruler of Greater Syria and then Iraq), when they were planning the Arab Revolt. However, Lawrence appears to be wearing these garments in the famous oil portrait by Augustus John (see appendix), which was completed during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (see detailed case below). Four years later, on 9 February 1921, Lawrence wore his Arab robes together with a silver-gilt jambiya when he sat for the sculptress Kathleen Scott, widow of the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. After his final sitting on 20 February 1921, he left his robes and dagger with Kathleen so that she could continue her work while he sailed to Cairo. Over a year later, on 28 August 1922, Lawrence wrote to her to request their return. No such retrieval was made and the robes and dagger have remained in the possession of the family since then. The robes and the dagger were sold as separate lots in the same auction. TE Lawrence’s Arab robes meet two of the Waverly Criteria (1 and 3) as they are closely connected with our history, in this case one of Britain’s most famous recent heroes. Therefore their departure would be a misfortune. Furthermore, they are of outstanding significance for the study of a particular branch of history. Lawrence’s robes may be connected to key moments in modern Middle Eastern history (i.e. the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918 and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919). Finally they, like the dagger, symbolise all that the man stood for and believed in, and through such iconic objects a wider public will be drawn to find out, not only about Lawrence himself, but also about Britain’s entangled relationship with Middle Eastern politics, past and present. Berton, Joseph. ‘T. E. Lawrence: His Arab Clothing and Daggers’, The Journal of the T. E. Lawrence Society, vol. XXIV (2014/15), No.1, pp. 39-55. Garnett, David (ed.), The Letters of T. E. Lawrence of Arabia (London, 1964). 2 Jolley, Alison. ‘‘An acute attack of Lawrencitis’: Lady Kathleen Scott’s Friendship with the Lawrence family’, The Journal of the T. E. Lawrence Society, vol. XXIV (2014/15), No.1, pp. 56-111. Wilson, Jeremy. T. E. Lawrence (London, 1988) [National Portrait Gallery exhibition catalogue]. Wilson, Jeremy. Lawrence of Arabia (Stroud, 1998). DETAILED CASE To understand the historical significance of the Arab robes, one must come to grips with the personality and significance of TE Lawrence and the part he played in fostering relations between Britain and the Levant between 1910- 1930. Such is his fame that there is a society dedicated to the study of his life (TE Lawrence Society, http://www.telsociety.org.uk). Countless books have been written by and about him, and many of his personal objects, portraits and papers are stored across our national institutions and libraries. In addition to the previously mentioned large-scale exhibitions focussing on his life and work, an upcoming exhibition planned for 2016-2017 at the National Civil War Centre, Newark Museum in Nottinghamshire, is of particular relevance as it is dedicated to the great Arab Revolt. Lawrence was a Classical scholar, archaeologist, author, soldier and diplomat whose interest in the Middle East took root when he chose to write his Oxford thesis (1910) on Crusader castles of the Levant, for which he conducted primary fieldwork. He was mentored by the famous archaeologist and diplomat, David Hogarth (d.1927) and directed with Leonard Woolley an important excavation at the ancient city of Carchemish, on the modern Syrian and Turkish border for the British Museum. It was at Carchemish that they learned of German interest in the region and provided crucial intelligence to the British authorities on the matter. The pair’s survey of southern Palestine (then under Ottoman rule) under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund was ostensibly an archaeological project, but in reality was a smokescreen for a British military mapping expedition carried out by the Royal Engineers. In 1914 Lawrence and Woolley were called up for war service to work under Hogarth at the Arab Bureau set up in Cairo. With his expert knowledge of the region and Arab culture, Lawrence was a natural choice to help foster the Arab Revolt (1916-1918), a series of strategic battles and assaults aimed at toppling the ruling Ottoman Turks in the Levant, in order to create a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen. During this period, Lawrence worked closely with Emir Feisal and numerous other Arab leaders. The events are recounted in detail by Lawrence in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom and immortalised in the public imagination through David Lean’s 1962 biopic, Lawrence of Arabia. As Emir Feisal’s liaison officer, Lawrence would always be seen in Arab dress – this was initially at the behest of the Emir himself. As he explained in his Seven Pillars, ‘If I wore Meccan clothes, [the Arabs] would behave to me as 3 though I were really one of the leaders; and I might slip in and out of Feisal’s tent without making a sensation which he had to explain away each time to strangers. I agreed at once, very gladly; for army uniform was abominable when camel-riding or when sitting on the ground; and the Arab things…were cleaner and more decent in the desert.’ (Seven Pillars, p. 126) Lawrence was very successful in combining British and Arab forces, especially in insurgency raids on the Turkish Hejaz railway. Over the course of the Revolt, the Arabs advanced out of Arabia through Transjordan to Syria, where they arrived in 1917. However, Lawrence was to become very disillusioned with the British authorities when he discovered that the French and British were planning to carve up the Levant after the war (following the Sykes-Picot agreement in May 1916). He managed to put Feisal temporarily on the Syrian throne, but this was an abject failure and Britain ultimately gained control of Palestine as a Mandate and France took over Syria. Lawrence, however, still played a major role in Middle Eastern diplomacy, having the full support of Winston Churchill. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and many others attended the Cairo conference in 1921 (when he left his robes with Kathleen Scott), which resulted in Feisal becoming King of Iraq under British guidance. Lawrence, however, did warn of the problem about including Kurds and Muslims in the same territory. Indeed, Lawrence’s prescience is very poignant today. It is almost certain that because he felt the Arab world had been betrayed, he apparently had a nervous breakdown and spent most of the rest of his life in self-imposed exile in the armed forces under two pseudonyms (John Hume Ross and TE Shaw). Whilst in the forces, he wrote his Seven Pillars of Wisdom and became an international celebrity as a result of the biography written by the American journalist, Lowell Thomas. His fame resulted in numerous painted portraits, photographs and sculptures by leading artists of the time, such as Augustus John, William Rothenstein and Howard Coster. Some of his portraits were in traditional Arab dress and others in western or military attire. Lawrence was very keen to acquire his portrait painted by Augustus John during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference but it was beyond his means. It appears that he wore the waistcoat and robe in question for this famous portrait. When the Duke of Westminster purchased the painting with a view to donating it to the Tate, Lawrence wrote to the artist: ‘Really, I’m hotter stuff than I thought: the wrathful portrait went off at top speed for a thousand to a Duke! Of course I know you will naturally think the glory is yours but I believe it’s due to the exceeding beauty of my face.’ (J. Wilson, T. E. Lawrence, p. 77) He developed a taste for fast motorboats and motorcycles, and was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1935. Although he is buried in Westminster Abbey, there is an outstanding effigy of Lawrence, once again in Arab dress, by Eric Kennington in St Martin’s Church, Wareham.
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