[Mandate Palestine - Arab Revolt]. [Photograph album of the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine (Thawrat Filastin al-Kubra)].

€ 3,500.00

A striking photographic record of the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, compiled by a photographer with access to both British and Arab troops, including several photographs of the Arab leader Fawzi al-Qawuqji (1880-1977). Al-Qawuqji was evidently comfortable enough to pose for the camera: he smiles for the photographer with his rifle in hand, binoculars around his neck, and poses a second time with his two bodyguards; he is also photographed discussing plans with an aide, and on horseback directing operations and reviewing his army.

Many photographs were been taken during active battle: a line of al-Qawuqji's guerrilla fighters are seen firing at the enemy with rifles, or at the sky hunting RAF airplanes (famously, al-Qawuqji's forces had in fact shot down RAF planes as early as September 1936). All photographs of action are taken quite sensibly from behind, but quite close to the line of fire. Nor is warfare depicted cleanly; the photographer captures running soldiers in an Arab retreat, and carefully snaps photos of two Arab corpses. Several photographs also show the wreckage of train bombings, with twisted tracks and derailed locomotives, and one photograph, almost artistically composed, shows a line of British soldiers from behind looking out on a sunny hillside city where a plume of smoke rises. Other photos of British operations show two armed British soldiers in front of a crowd of Arab civilians with their arms in the air, soldiers manning a machine gun on the back of a lorry, bombed appartment complexes, and army camps.

In addition, this album documents another historic event: the coronation of King Abdullah I of Transjordan in Amman on 25 May 1946, one image showing Abdullah with his younger son, Nayef, next to Iraqi Ambassador Nuri Pasha Said. It also features parades of the Arab Legion and the King riding his Daimler car to the ceremony.

The remainder of the album provides a civilian backdrop to the battle scenes: several views such as one would expect in a Holy Land tourist album, including images of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, interiors of orthodox churches, ruins, ports and views of the desert, conjoint with pictures of the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

Altogether an attractive record of Mandate Palestine during the upheavals of the 1930s.