‘THE FINEST HORSEMAN IN ARABIA, AND ONE OF ITS BRAVEST AND RICHEST AND MOST BELOVED MEN’
KENNINGTON, Eric Henri. ‘Sherif Shakir’. Fordingbridge: Castle Hill Press, 1997.
Colour print with calligraphic manuscript title and limitation, and printed artist’s name and imprint below (338 x 257mm). Cardboard mount, as issued (500 x 400mm). A fine copy.
No. 54 of 225. Lawrence considered Sherif Shakir ‘[t]he outstanding figure of Abdulla’s entourage […], a man of twenty-nine, and companion since boyhood of the four Emirs. His mother was Circassian, as had been his grandmother. From them he obtained his fair complexion; but the flesh of his face was torn away by smallpox. From its white ruin two restless eyes looked out, very bright and big; for the faintness of his eyelashes and eyebrows made his stare directly disconcerting. His figure was tall, slim, almost boyish from the continual athletic activity of the man. His sharp, decided, but pleasant voice frayed out if he shouted. His manner while delightfully frank, was abrupt, indeed imperious; with a humour as cracked as his cackling laugh. […] He was devout, but hated Mecca, and played backgammon while Abdulla read the Koran. Yet by fits he would pray interminably. In war he was the man at arms. His feats made him the darling of the tribes. He, in return, described himself as a Bedawi, and an Ateibi, and imitated them. He wore his black hair in plaits down each side of his face, and kept it glossy with butter, and strong by frequent washings in camel urine. […] He owned splendid horses and camels: was considered the finest rider in Arabia: ready for a match with anyone. Shakir gave me the sense that he preferred a fit of energy to sustained effort: but there was balance and shrewdness behind his mad manner’ (Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London, 1935), p. 214).
Lawrence referred to these qualities again in his preface to the Leicester Galleries exhibition catalogue of 1927, where he described Sherif Shakir as, ‘the finest horseman in Arabia, and one of its bravest and richest and most beloved men’ (Oriental Assembly (London, [1939]), p. 155).
£95
Click here to read the introduction to Eric Kennington’s Arab Portraits.
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