By T. E. Lawrence, 1905

Lawrence's father had a keen interest in church architecture, and it was probably through this that Lawrence was introduced to medieval brasses. His schoolfriend C. F. C. Beeson recalled: 'At the age of fifteen he was well versed in monumental brasses and had acquired a fine series of rubbings from churches in eastern and southern countries. Cut out and pasted on the walls of his bedroom were life-size figures of knights and priests with Sir John d'Aubernon and Roger de Trumpington, a Crusader, in pride of place. Under his tuition my first brass was rubbed at Wytham in October 1904; and from that date onwards throughout the following school years we made excursions by cycle to nearly every village in the three counties and to many places farther afield.

'It was no collector's hobby. There were experiments in the technique of rubbing with different grades of heelball and paper, assisted by friendly advice from shoemakers and paper-hangers whose shops supplied our raw materials. There was much searching in libraries for the histories of those priests and knights and ladies, which narrowed into a study of armour and costume.'¹

The rubbing exhibited is one of several made by Lawrence during a cycling tour of East Anglia with his father in the summer of 1905. The canopy and supercanopy were omitted from the rubbing, because they are mutilated. There are further examples of brass rubbings by Lawrence at the Ashmolean Museum, Jesus College, Oxford, and Clouds Hill.

Heel-ball on paper, 181 x 76.5

Signed and dated in ink, br.: E./Lawrence 1905

Provenance: Given to the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society Collection, Ashmolean Museum, by T. E. Lawrence.