ALLENBY, Edmund Henry, 1st Viscount, letters, autographs, documents, manuscripts


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ALLENBY, Edmund Henry, 1st Viscount (1861-1936). Field Marshal.
Autograph Letter Signed ('Allenby') to an unnamed correspondent ('Dear Madam'), 1 page 8vo, 24 Wetherby Gardens, 8 June, no year. Telling her that he knows nothing of the portrait of [T.E.] Lawrence, and suggesting that she asks Augustus John 'the artist'.
There are several portraits or drawings of T.E. Lawrence by Augustus John in London collections. The celebrated oil portrait of 1919 is in the Tate Gallery, and two sketches made in the same year were given to the National Portrait Gallery [NPG] in 1944 by George Bernard Shaw; a chalk drawing of 1929 was presented to the NPG in 1937 by Eric Kennington (himself the creator of drawings of Lawrence and of the bronze bust (1926) now also in the NPG).

Lawrence had of course fought alongside Allenby in the offensive against the Tukish armies in Palestine. The present letter must be dated some time from 1928 onwards when Allenby lived in Wetherby Gardens, having relinquished the grace-and-favour residence of Deal Castle in Kent.
[No: 25600]

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