Author: [PHOTOGRAPHS - IRAQ]. REYNISH, William.
Title: [Views, scenes, monuments, airplanes, military vehicles, British troops and local inhabitants].[Iraq (plus Malta and Egypt), ca. 1928-1933]. Oblong albums (25 x 34.5 cm & 21.5 x 28.5 cm). Two albums containing about 275 silver halide photographic gelatin prints (6 x 8.5 cm to 16 x 21.5 cm) assembled and mostly taken by a British Royal Air Force pilot while stationed in Iraq and then briefly Malta, with a visit to Egypt. The photos mounted with paper corner-mounts in two contemporary cloth-covered albums, the larger with padded boards covered in alligator-skin patterned dark green cloth, with the photographs on both sides of 24 dark grey album leaves, each leaf with a glassine paper guard-leaf (embossed with a spider-web pattern) bound in before it; the smaller covered in black cloth with a grey-white bird in a cloud painted on the front board and the word “snaps”, with the photographs on both sides of leaves 2-35 & 51-52 of 54 light brown album leaves.
Description: A collection of about 275 photographs made by an RAF pilot, Sergeant William Reynish, during his service in Iraq ca. 1928-1933 and Malta 1933, and during a brief visit to Egypt. Most have captions written on the album leaves clearly identifying the scenes. Some photos show scenes of daily life in Iraq (Bagdad, Hinaidi, Mosul and other cities, as well as the surrounding countryside) with local people, shops, buildings, landscapes, ruins, monuments, etc. Others show the British troops and their activities, vehicles, airplanes (including crashed ones), etc. The portraits include an unidentified sheik with a falcon and an Arabic man smoking a hookha water pipe. The Kurdish Sheik Mahmud Barzanji of Sulaimaniyah, rebelled against the Iraqi army around June 1930 but the RAF bombed his people's villages from September 1930 to April 1931, when he finally surrendered to Major W.C.F.A. Wilson, administrative inspector at Mosul. Several photographs cover the sheik and his surrender.The surviving corner mounts show that three photographs have been removed from the album. A few photographs are slightly blurry or faded, but most are very sharp and in very good condition. The inside front hinge of one album has broken, but the albums are otherwise in good condition. A wealth of informative images from pre-War Iraq, most clearly identified in the captions.

Keywords: [4C531C9794C4] AFRICA|[4C531C9794C4] AFRICA -> [C98C41A79B35] North Africa & Egypt|[04F65CFF5112] ART & ARCHITECTURE|[04F65CFF5112] ART & ARCHITECTURE -> [035D43830D89] Photography|[7F0260752519] EUROPE|[7F0260752519] EUROPE -> [5C534DC5B117] France, Gree