Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 137

PONTING (HERBERT GEORGE)
"The 'Terra Nova' in McMurdo Sound", [January, 1911]

7 February 2018, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

£2,000 - £4,000

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Travel & Exploration specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

PONTING (HERBERT GEORGE)

"The 'Terra Nova' in McMurdo Sound", blue-green carbon print, some surface crackling to emulsion in the dark areas, 75mm. tear in centre of upper margin, a few small abrasions, and light rubbing at extreme edges, 552 x 730mm., [January, 1911]

Footnotes

Fine Art Society Exhibition, No. 25, "...shows a berg in the last stage of decay...in this condition the ice frequently assumes the most beautiful shapes imaginable...".

"During those midnight days, when others slept and only the night watch and I were awake, some of the most memorable of my Antarctic experiences befell me. It was in those 'night' hours, too, as the sun paraded round the southern heavens, that I secured some of the best of my Polar studies. One of these was 'The Death of an Iceberg' [alternative title to our image]-- which represents a berg in the last stage of decay, from the action of the sun and currents" (H.G. Ponting, The Great White South, 1924, p.69).

Provenance: Griffith Taylor (1880-1963), the lead geologist on the Terra Nova Expedition. A 13-line pencil note about the picture is loose mounted on the verso of the frame. Griffiths notes that "in the distance are the peaks of the Royal Society Range (in the SW corner of the Ross Sea)... in foreground the effects of the sun on a fringe of land ice...".

Additional information

Bid now on these items

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

ADVERTISING POSTERfor 'The Suffragette' newspaper, [c.1913-1914]

ILLUMINATED ADDRESS – CLARA CODD Illuminated printed address signed by Emmeline Pankhurst, [1909]

MUSIC & RECORDINGS – ETHEL SMYTH Collection of printed music, song sheets and records, [c.1911-1912]