Scott Polar Research Institute
Museum catalogue: Kamchatka Catalogue
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Kamchatka Catalogue
The Kamchatkan project originated in efforts to buy the group of six Webber drawings of natives of Kamchatka. These drawings had originally been exported from the United Kingdom in 1932 and entered the collection of Francis Farquhar (1887-1974) in California, a notable mountaineer, conservationist and scholar. After the death of Farquhar's wife, Marjorie Bridge Farquhar, the collection passed to another American collector and was probably the largest holding of original Cook voyage material remaining in private ownership.
When the Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby decided to raise money to acquire the drawings, they formed a number of partnerships. The Scott Polar Research Institute was an obvious choice, with its research expertise in ethnography, social and art history, and concern to broaden access to material about the polar regions. Kamchatka in particular was a relatively neglected area. We therefore decided together to create a pilot scheme for an online catalogue of material from Siberian regions in the United Kingdom, bringing the holdings of both institutions together. We look forward to seeing this regularly used by students and researchers, together with all those interested in early exploration, and to extending it in the future to other institutional holdings.
Further details on any item in the collection may be obtained on application to the Museum Curator. For details of public and research access please see the main Museum page of the website. For rights and images for publication, please contact the Picture Library.
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Data in this catalogue was last updated on Tuesday, 13th June 2023.