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ArtistsWinter Quarters, from amongst the floebergs, looking south, March, 1876
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| Accession no.: | Y: 49/34/11 |
| Title: | Winter Quarters, from amongst the floebergs, looking south, March, 1876 |
| Description: | Chromo-lithograph facsimile of original watercolour by Dr Edward Moss, during the British Arctic Expedition, 1875-76. |
| Medium: | Lithograph |
| Artist: | Moss, Edward Lawton |
| Note: | Published as 'Polar Sketches', a small portfolio of sixteen prints, in 1876 by Marcus Ward London. 'It is believed by both Artist and Publishers that a much fuller and more vivid idea of Arctic scenery can be produced by careful chromo-lithographic fac-similes of the original drawings made by Dr Edward L. Moss during the Expedition, than by any rendering in black and white. The sketches are not designed to illustrate the progress of the Expedition, or any stirring events in its history, so much as the appearance of the strange and desolate country by the shores of which the ships slowly steamed, the wonderful phenomena of the sky, and the effects of light and shade produced by a midnight sun, or a mid-day moon, on the ice-bound rocks which form the scenery of the region. They are here reproduced ... in order to make them more generally accessible ... It must be added that the sketches are all the work of one hand - Dr Edward L. Moss, who served on board the Alert in the Arctic Expedition which left England on the 29th of May, 1875, and entered the Arctic regions on the 4th of July in the same year. Although the Expedition failed in reaching the Pole - which was among the sailing orders on which it started - it yet achieved results of the highest scientific and geographic value. Of what kind was the life they led - what strange experiences they gained of natural phenomena, and the freaks of light on ice and rock - the accompanying drawings illustrate with a vividness and fullness never before arrived at in sketches of Arctic life'. 'Quarter of a mile north of the Alert a field of polar floe had been pushed on shore, and split up into a number of floebergs, with lanes and streets between them. This view of our winter quarters was obtained from the top of one of the fragments. Beyond the ship Cape Rawson may be seen forming the western portal of Robeson Channel, while away across the strait the snowy hills of Greenland make the eastern' - Extract from 'Shores of the Polar Sea'. |
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