Image 250mm x 178mm (9 9/8in x 7ins); mount 13 ½ in x 9 7/10 in (345mm x247mm). Signed in pencil on the card mount ‘Howard Coster F.R.S.A. London’, and contained in a contemporary oak, easel back, frame

Six images from Coster’s photographic session with T.E. Lawrence, held at his Essex Street studio off the Strand in London on 13 October 1931, are in the photographic collection of the National Portrait Gallery, including a version of the same cream toned image (ref NPG Ax3425) donated to the NPG by the Estate of Howard Coster. Another print from this session was in the collection of the artist Eric Kennington.

During 1931-2 Lawrence was serving in the ranks of R.A.F. where he was employed in the south of England in the construction and trials of speed boats as seaplane tenders. Lawrence found the hours he spent at sea testing boats physically exhausting. Nevertheless, he believed the work was important - as indeed it turned out to be. During the Second World War the boats he helped develop into A.S.R. vessels in the 1930s saved thousands of lives.