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PONTING (HERBERT GEORGE) A group of 35 vintage gelatin silver and platinum contact prints depicting the British Antarctic Expedition, or 'Terra Nova Expedition', led by Robert Falcon Scott, [1910-1911] image 1
PONTING (HERBERT GEORGE) A group of 35 vintage gelatin silver and platinum contact prints depicting the British Antarctic Expedition, or 'Terra Nova Expedition', led by Robert Falcon Scott, [1910-1911] image 2
Lot 143

PONTING (HERBERT GEORGE)
A group of 35 vintage gelatin silver and platinum contact prints depicting the British Antarctic Expedition, or 'Terra Nova Expedition', led by Robert Falcon Scott, [1910-1911]

7 February 2018, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £32,500 inc. premium

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PONTING (HERBERT GEORGE)

A group of 35 vintage gelatin silver and platinum contact prints depicting the British Antarctic Expedition, or 'Terra Nova Expedition', led by Robert Falcon Scott, all loose mounted in an album, ink title on first page "With Scott to the South Pole", a few with small marks or creases but generally tones exceptionally good, pencil number on verso, images mostly 125 x 178mm., 7 smaller 128 x 140mm., twentieth century cloth-backed board album, upper hinge cracked, small 4to, [1910-1911]

Footnotes

Herbert Ponting spent "a gruelling fourteen months at the hut at Cape Evans, building himself a small photographic darkroom in order to develop film and store his camera equipment. He produced over one thousand photographs during his stay in Antarctica which explore the Antarctic landscape and wildlife, whilst also visually documenting day-to-day expedition life" (Royal Geographical Society website).

The group includes: Dr. Atkinson and Clissold hauling up the fish trap, forty degrees below zero; Oates and Meares at the Blubber Stove in the Stables; Dr. Atkinson's dog sledge team landing stores; Evans and two companions with skis and furs on the ice pack; full-length portrait of Scott on the ice; View of the deck of the Terra Nova with dogs; The camp hut and Mount Erebus by moonlight; The Terra Nova (6, including from the Ice cave; at the ice foot, Cape Evans); close-up studies of penguins (5); groups of penguins on the ice (3); a seal on the ice.

These smaller format contact prints, mostly with very good tonal range, allow for much greater sharpness and clarity of detail than the enlargements.

Provenance: S.L. Holmes, North Finchley, London, address inside upper cover; by descent to the present owner.

Additional information

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