AN ENGLISH CUBIST




WILLIAM ROBERTS:

Mucking in



Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.


Mucking in

Mucking in, 1925–6
Pen and ink, 28.5 cm x 20 cm

Tailpiece drawing for Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: '[T]wo men came staggering through the thrilled crowd, carrying the rice and meat on a tinned copper tray or shallow bath, five feet across, set like a great brazier on a foot . . . and the host called us to come and eat. We feigned a deafness, as manners demanded: at last we heard him, and looked surprised at one another, each urging his fellow to move first; till Nasir rose coyly, and after him we all came forward to sink on one knee round the tray, wedging in and cuddling up till the twenty-two for whom there was barely space were grouped around the food. We turned back our right sleeves to the elbow, and, taking lead from Nasir with a low "In the name of God the merciful, the loving-kind", we dipped together' (ch. 46).
PROVENANCE: Bayard L. Kilgour Jr > Houghton Library, Harvard University (1966, MS Eng 1653, no. 23)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: Leicester Galleries (1) 1927




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