Bardia Masterpiece Updates 1

This is now very clear

I want to thank Hatem Sabrey from Tripoli, Libya who has contacted me and provided much needed recent photographs.
Unfortunately, as can be seen, it is not possible to show what is no longer there. Apart from cracks presumably due to movement of the building itself, much of the loss of contrast in the mural is due to the blackness having been rubbed off by hand. Some graphiti, (which knows no national boundaries),

has been applied in various places and some of it then thankfully removed as much as is possible. The site appears in several tour guides and so it is very likely that the graphiti has been provided by all nationalities.

Visitors pitting the value of their handiwork against that of Brill are doomed to be remembered (if at all) as failures.

All pictures adapted from an original courtesy of Hatem Sabrey (Tripoli, Libya)

  

The carved head on one of the cellos is reminiscent of the prow of an ancient ship.

Look at the detail showing the strings wound around the tuning knobs

The faces seem to have an international flavour.

The detail and subtle shading is very fine and after 64 years of exposure, the upper parts of the mural seem remarkably clear.

If only we could read the titles
Are they encyclopaedias, they are all the same size?

NO! - The latest update, courtesy of Lydia Pappas, is that the books are in fact a selection of works by Charles Dickens.

From left to right
A Tale of Two Cities; Barnaby Rudge; David Copperfield; The Old Curiosity Shop and The Pickwick Papers.
The photograph provided by John Seccombe provides the last title, 'Christmas Carol'.

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