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Al-Annuri – the Moroccan Ambassador

In 1600, there was a significant shift in England’s relationship with the Islamic world. Abd al-Wahid bin Masoud bin Muhammad al-Annuri was forty-two years old when he travelled to England as the ambassador of the Moroccan ruler, Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur. He was met at Dover on 8 August by members of the Barbary Company trading in Morocco, who took him and his retinue into London.

Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, 1600. © University of Birmingham Shakespeare Institute

Al-Annuri’s mission was to establish an Anglo-Moroccan alliance which would unite Moroccan Sunni Muslims and English Protestants against their common enemy: Catholic Spain. Al-Annuri’s proposal to Elizabeth was to invade Spain and reconquer Al Andalus (the mainland of Spain that had been under Muslim rule for centuries) and also launch a joint campaign against Spanish colonies in the Americas and Asia. Morocco was willing to supply the English fleet with provisions, infantry and money.

After being met at Dover, they travelled to London, arriving at Tower Wharf on 15 August. From there, they went to the household of Anthony Radcliffe, a merchant, on the Strand. Londoners observed, what they perceived to be, the Moroccans’ unusual dress and Islamic customs, including prayer. Then five days later, the Moroccans had their first audience with the Queen at Nonsuch Palace in Surrey. Clearly eager to impress, the palace was prepared with ‘rich hangings and furniture sent from Hampton Court’.

DGR by Legros

 

                                     

Donato Esposito recently uncovered this chalk drawing by Alphonse Legros within the Slade School collection [where Legros taught] at UCL and correctly identified it as a portrait of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Comparing it  and especially the not yet entirely receded hairline, with the photos of DGR taken in October 1863 by Lewis Carroll [as he then wasn't] the portrait must have been drawn around the same season, Rossetti's first summer in Chelsea, when he frequently invited guests.   Legros was there on 16 July, for example, in company with Swinburne, Whistler and some other fellows.

In the Legros collection at UCL, mostly comprising etchings, are a few other unidentified sitters.  Some may have been studies, others look like portraits, whose names have been lost.  These two for instance

    

Louisa Waterford

 

a much-overlooked artist, not least because  her major work is on the upper walls of a village hall in far [depending where you are] Northumberland  but worth a big detour.     

Born into high society, her father being British ambassador to Paris, her elder sister married to Viscount Channing, Louisa fell for the dissolute Marquess of Waterford at the famous Eglinton Tournament and spent several years as a 'hunt widow' in Ireland until his lordship broke his neck in a riding accident..  

Louisa retired to Ford in the far north of England, where she built and decorated the hall with instructional images [not murals because they are on paper]. Lots of them, many using local people and local animals as models.

The Hall is now a free museum. Home page - Lady Waterford Hall (ford-and-etal.co.uk)