Petit, VictorMareMagnum
An RAF airman's archive from the Western Desert campaign Egypt Libya the Levant and Iraq.
1940réf. 1690571940-43. Fine photographs of North Africa and the Middle East A British airman's substantial archive comprising photographs autographs ephemera and medals. A skilled photographer Jack Leslie Lees 1912-1980 was a leading aircraftman at the RAF's Air Ministry Experimental Station AMES Number 235 a British radar unit employed in Wadi El Natrun Egypt and Tobruk Libya where they suffered German attack in 1942. His personal archives hold extensive records of his military service and activities on leave between 1940 and 1943. The photographs portray Lees and other soldiers during their free moments and in battle as well as everyday scenes at the base and outside. He photographed Aboukir Alexandria including the zoo Cairo and Mersa Matrouh the site of several battles. In 1941 he was in Tobruk where he photographed as always everyday scenes and interesting buildings and documented the siege; he was also in Derna and Benghazi. Lees was especially fond of Jerusalem where he visited and photographed the holy sites. The first album opens with a Certificate of Pilgrimage with a chip of rock from the Grotto from Lees's visit to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem issued signed and stamped in Greek by Archimandrite Kyriakos; Lees also kept a memento with the leaf of a tree from the Garden of Gethsemane. The albums include fine views of Beirut's cityscape and other areas of Lebanon where he visited ruins and the Jezzine waterfalls as well as of Syria with several Roman sites and a coastal town perhaps Latakia or Tartus. The autographs and sketches in his pocket book were jotted down by British soldiers; one in Russian calls Lees "a comrade met in Tel-Aviv". Together 5 items: landscape folio brown camel leather album 325 x 345 mm with tooled and hand-coloured pictorial scene long-stitched with thick leather strip green silk pastedowns one with pasted broadsheet 15 stiff black card leaves tissue guards 224 photographs c. 61 x 87 mm mostly gelatine silver prints with ink caption at head of some leaves; landscape folio black leather 250 x 320 mm with tooled both covers and hand-coloured front cover only pictorial scene and Egyptian hieroglyphs long-stitched with a lace 30 stiff black card leaves 411 photographs c.61 x 87 mm of which 3 inserted loosely and 5 hand-coloured mostly gelatine silver prints occasional captions in white pen; an oblong octavo leatherette autograph book 90 x 110 mm upper cover gilt-lettered label of Oriental Philatelic House B. Hagopian Cairo on front pastedown 96 pages with autographs dedications and sketches in ink to 34 pages the remainder blank; a wooden display case 200 x 250 mm with velvet lining glazed containing four medals Atlantic Star Africa Star with North Africa 1942-43 bar Defence Medal and War Medal; and a leather flip case 125 x 55 mm with velvet lining containing one Imperial Service Medal. Extremities occasionally a trifle rubbed: very good examples. hardcover
Peter Harrington · Royaume-Uni4 250,00 £GB≈ 5 057,84 €
