Museum catalogue: Polar Art Collection

Inuit of Godhavn and Disco


Accession no.:	Y: 54/13/40
Title:	Inuit of Godhavn and Disco
Description:	One of set of 49 watercolours, 1 pencil sketch, 7 pen drawings, all the work of Staff Surgeon Edward Lawton Moss, R.N. of H.M.S.Alert during the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-76.
Medium:	Watercolour
Artist:	Moss, Edward Lawton
Note:	Artisit's note on verso describing the eskimo's tent and costume: 'Lively or Godhaven, Disco, 14 July 1875 ... Esquimaux woman and boy, sketch in a hunting igloo, or hut, near Lively Disco - the hunting hut is a seal-skin tent on a circular wall of sods and stones - the ordinary igloo is made entirely of sods and stones with a long covered entrance. In the population of 96 there are very few pure Eskimos, almost all show traces of Danish blood and the odd Dutch element is not entirely eradicated - the women dress in bright picturesque colours. A short quilted jacket trimmed with dog fur and generally made of twisted calico is the only garmet of European materials - nearly everything else is made of seal skin, short seal skin breeches with hair on each to just above the knee ...'
Dimensions:	Image: Width: 178mm; height: 126mm Mount: Width: 410mm; height: 280mm