Portrait of Walter B. Harris

Lavery's portrait of Walter B. Harris, epitomizes that generation of Edwardian colonial grandees whose taste for adventure inspired the tales of Rider Haggard, Captain Marriott, G.A. Henty and Robert Louis Stevenson. Here, in brown leather gaiters, jodhpurs and topee, his nonchalance, gentility and wit are immediately evident. On other occasions he could just as easily appear in Arab costume and address the viewer in the local dialect. Lavery and he quickly became friends on a memorable expedition to Fez, where the present canvas was painted.

Walter Burton Harris (1866-1933) was the son of a London shipping and insurance broker.1 His mother was a wealthy Scotswoman. The family lived on Chelsea Embankment while Walter attended Harrow and as a youth he was a friend and a neighbour of Whistler and Oscar Wilde. In his nineteenth year, he abandoned his undergraduate studies at Cambridge to travel and within a year was ensconced in Tangier, the sparkling city where, on an allowance of £180 a year, he could live comfortably. In the following years, he made expeditions to Fez and Marrakesh, and in 1892 visited the Yemen, sending colourful accounts of his travels to The Times, Blackwoods Magazine, The Cornhill, The Westminster Review, The Saturday Review and other papers. These travels were interspersed with forays into European society and in 1894, during the Homburg season, he met the Prince of Wales who was captivated by his skill as a raconteur. A legacy in 1894 enabled him to construct the palatial Villa Harris at the eastern end of Tangier beach, although he quickly realized that its location made it at times unsafe and that it was necessary to maintain an establishment within the walls of the city. During 1903 Harris was captured and held for a time by the notorious brigand, El Raisuli. Not only did it quickly become apparent that a ransom was unlikely, but Harris and Raisuli developed a mutual respect2. By this time Harris's adopted city was the centre of intrigue as the European powers jockeyed for control. The Times gave him a monthly stipend which was followed in 1906 by a full contract as 'Tangier Correspondent' - an appointment that lasted until his death. He also produced books of travel writing and these continued after the Great War. His summing up of Moroccan memories, Morocco That Was, appeared in 1921. In 1927 and 1930 he made his two expeditions to the Far East, neither of which were recorded in detail. While embarking on a further trip in April 1933, he died of a stroke. 3

Lavery implies that a trip to Tangier and onward to Fez was arranged by his friend, R.B. Cunninghame Graham in 1907. 4 This suggests that he and Harris had not met on one of his visits to the city in the early nineties. 5 They were nevertheless friends throughout the Edwardian years. 6 The painter recounts his adventures as they rode across the desert, and describes the occasion when Harris and Graham were surrounded by ferocious tribesmen. Cooly Harris 'took out his notebook, wrote something and passed it over'. Lavery continues 'the chief examined it in a way that showed he had no notion of what was written, kissed the paper, touched his brow, shook hands, and allowed us to proceed'. 7 Harris had apparently written a note of safe passage for the tribe, through the lands dominated by Raisuli.

Throughout the journey, the painter made small sketches of the towns they passed through, as well as a splendid small panorama of Fez. They were entertained liberally by rich Moors, and using new found contacts in the city, he was able to observe, and paint, a harem, from a concealed vantage point.8 A half-length portrait of Harris passed through the Fine Art Society in the 1980s and several small views of the Villa Harris garden with its exotic white peacocks are known. 9 He owned other views of the city and its environs by Lavery which, taken alongside Lavery's paintings of the Kasbah, the beach, the Souk and its snake charmers, form a rich tapestry. Only The Greyhound, 1909 (Ulster Museum, Belfast) an interior with Reginald Lister and Eileen Lavery, vies with the present portrait in capturing the tone of the expatriate microcosm which surrounded the British Legation.


1 J. Chandler, 'Afterword' in W. Harris, Morocco That Was, (1921), London, 2002, pp. 233-245.
2 Harris, 2002, ed., pp. 127-34.
3 W. Harris, East for Pleasure London, 1929 and East Again: A Narrative of a Journey to the Near, Middle and Far East, London, 1933.
4 J. Lavery, The Life of a Painter, London, 1940, p. 95.
5 Lavery's first visit to Tangier occured from January to March 1891.
6 Harris was for instance, invited to Eileen Lavery's wedding at Tangier in 1913.
7 Life, 1940, p. 96.
8 For further reference see K. McConkey, op.cit. 1993, pp. 93-95.
9 Ibid, p. 98.

K.M.