A crucial event in UAE history

[The Sack of Ras Al-Khaimah]. HMS Chiffonne. Persian Gulf 1809-1810.

€ 35.000,00

Exceptionally rare: a pair of near-contemporary watercolours reflecting the English popular imagination of a crucial event in UAE history, the disastrous first sack of Ras Al-Khaimah in late 1809.

The punitive expedition was carried out by a 16-ship fleet of the British navy headed by HMS Chiffone under the command of Captain Wainwright, allegedly in retaliation for repeated acts of piracy against British ships perpetrated by the Qawasim, but certainly a convenient means for the British to expand their power in the Gulf on behalf of the East India Company. The battle, a massacre that is still locally remembered in story and song, was the beginning of a new era: that of British control in the Gulf.

The fleet sailed from Bombay on 14 September 1809, reaching Muscat on 11 November and descending on Ras Al-Khaimah in the dawn of the 12th. All day long the British ships bombarded the town’s defences and homes. In the early morning of 13 November, 600 of the more than 1,300 British soldiers landed on the beach and, after bitter fighting, soon breached Ras Al-Khaimah’s defences. Having demolished the town, the Chiffonne and the rest of the fleet sailed along the coast, wrecking additional fortresses.

The atmospheric watercolours depict the landing operation, with the Chiffonne firing its cannons and the British soldiers reaching the beach, in one picture setting fire to a pirate ship. The set of drawings at hand, apparently the work of a talented enthusiast, may even pre-date the publication of the aquatints by Richard Temple in his famous “Sixteen Views of Places in the Persian Gulph Taken in the Years 1809-10”, published in 1813 from his own drawings made on location as a private in the 65th Regiment.

Provenance: once sold through the London rare book and autograph dealer Frank T. Sabin (1846-1915), with his labels on the back. Latterly in a private UK collection.