LAWRENCE, T. E.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Original handout photograph of Lawrence in Blue Mist in Damascus, together with five original photographs of the Zionist Commission in Palestine. A famous image of a tired but triumphant Lawrence of Arabia, taken in Damacus's Marjeh Square on 1 October 1918, at the culmination of the Arab Revolt. Weathered and wearied from desert warfare, Lawrence sits in the passenger seat of Blue Mist alongside Walter Stirling, his principal aide.Recent research has identified Blue Mist as chassis number 60985, built in 1909 in Manchester. One evening in July 1917, Lawrence spotted the car outside a nightclub in Cairo and requisitioned it for the war effort. Outfitted and armoured for operations in Arabia, Blue Mist offered Lawrence the twin advantages of speed and flexibility, which he used to great effect. As he wrote in Seven Pillars, "a Rolls in the desert was above rubies."Lawrence served as a liaison between Faisal and the Zionist Commission, translating at a meeting between Faisal and Chaim Weizmann in December 1918. The five photographs concerning the commission's time in Palestine include two documenting its arrival on 3 April, when it was met by William Ormsby-Gore, the British military liaison, and Gilbert Clayton. Two show Weizmann, General Allenby, Ronald Storrs (as the military governor of Jerusalem), two chief rabbis, and other dignitaries on 24 May 1918, at a ceremony in Allenby's honour in Jerusalem, during which the Jewish community presented him with a Sefer Torah. The fi

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