Annex B Case 18 (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 once owned by T E Lawrence

Meets Waverley criteria 1 and 3

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Description: The object in question is a jambiya, a steel Arab dagger with a curved and with a gilded silver hilt and scabbard, both of which are ornately tooled and decorated with wirework, pierced work and applied gilded elements. The dagger and scabbard measure 30 cm in length. The maker is unknown, but it was most likely produced in , , in a style known in as ‘assib’. The jambiya dates from the late 19th – early 20th century and is in very good condition. The dagger once belonged to TE Lawrence (1888-1935), also known as Lawrence of Arabia. Only two of Lawrence’s are known to have survived; one is deposited at All Souls’ College, Oxford (on loan to the Ashmolean Museum), and this one.

Provenance: This silver-gilt jambiya was presented to Lawrence by Sherif Nasir (cousin of Emir Feisal I, who later became ruler of Greater Syria and then ) in 1917 after the victory at in (see detailed case below). Four years later, on 9 February 1921, Lawrence wore the jambiya together with his Arab robes 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 dagger and robes with Kathleen so that she could continue her work while he sailed to . Over a year later, on 28 August 1922, Lawrence wrote to her to request their return. No such retrieval was made and the dagger and robes have remained in the possession of the family since then. The dagger has been loaned twice by the family for two public exhibitions: in 1988-1989 for the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition, T. E. Lawrence, and again in 2005-2006 for the Imperial War Museum’s exhibition, Lawrence of Arabia: the Life, the Legend.

Lawrence has been depicted wearing the dagger in several photographic portraits, in addition to Kathleen Scott’s statuette (see appendix).

TE Lawrence’s jambiya meets two of the Waverly Criteria (1 and 3) as it is closely connected with our history, in this case one of Britain’s most famous recent heroes. Therefore its departure would be a misfortune. Furthermore, it is of outstanding significance for the study of a particular branch of art and history. With respect to art, it is a wonderful example of Arab silversmithing and should be studied in light of other contemporary examples, especially since it is a craft that has greatly diminished since the 1960s. Secondly, Lawrence’s dagger is connected to a key moment in modern Middle Eastern history (i.e. the and the Battle at Aqaba). Finally, it symbolises all that the man stood for and believed in, and through this iconic object 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 (, 1964).

2 Gracie, Stephen. Jambiya: Daggers from the Ancient Souqs of (Manly Vale, 2010), p. 170.

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 jambiya, 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 to this dagger as it is dedicated to the great Arab Revolt.

Lawrence was a Classical scholar, archaeologist, author, soldier and diplomat whose interest in the 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 (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 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 and immortalised in the public imagination through David Lean’s 1962 biopic, Lawrence of Arabia.

3 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 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 . Lawrence, and many others attended the Cairo conference in 1921 (when he left his dagger 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 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 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, . 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.

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 in Arab dress, holding his jambiya, by in St Martin’s , Wareham.

As part of his personal Arab attire, Lawrence owned three different . Sherif Abdullah, elder brother of Feisal and future ruler of the Transjordan, presented Lawrence with his first silver-gilt dagger. However, during the Arab Revolt, Lawrence gifted this dagger to one of the Howeitat chiefs at the urging of Sherif Nasir (cousin of Feisal), which helped towards securing support from the Bedouin at the . After the triumph at Aqaba, Nasir presented Lawrence with a new silver-gilt dagger – the one in question here, thus inextricably connecting it to this key moment in history. Lawrence found this dagger to be a bit heavy and large for everyday use and so commissioned a smaller gold dagger in Mecca. This third dagger was later presented to All Souls’ College, Oxford. In addition to the Oxford dagger, there are very few exceptional examples of jambiyas in museum collections in the UK. One comparable example at the British Museum is the Yemeni jambiya once owned by William Harold Ingrams (1897-1973), a British colonial diplomat posted in Aden and Zanzibar. Lawrence’s dagger is of exceptional quality and would be of great value in the study of Arab jambiyas with respect to craftsmanship, regional styles and manufacture.

4 In conclusion, this jambiya is so closely related with British history that its departure would be a misfortune. Furthermore, it is of outstanding significance from the point of view of the study of late 19th and early 20th century Arab jambiyas and for the study of the biographical history of TE Lawrence as well as the study of Britain’s role in Middle Eastern politics, past and present.

APPENDIX

Lawrence wearing his Arab robes and the silver-gilt dagger, date unknown Statuette of Lawrence by Kathleen Scott, 1921

The silver-gilt dagger in question

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