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Herbert George Ponting (1871-1935)
Details
Herbert George Ponting (1871-1935)
The Terra Nova in McMurdo Sound
stamped 'HG Ponting' (lower right), titled and numbered '25' on the Fine Art Society label on the backing board
blue toned carbon print
23 x 29in. (58.4 x 73.7cm.)
PROVENANCE:
[Alf] Cheetham (inscription on the Fine Art Society label)
The photograph from Ponting's 7 x 5 negative (no. 109. Beautiful broken ice, reflections and Terra Nova) was taken on 7 January 1911.
Alternatively titled 'Death of an Iceberg' by Ponting who describes the events surrounding taking the present photograph, firstly almost breaking through the melting ice with his sledge and photographic apparatus and then peering into the pool in the foreground of this image to see 'a dreaded killer again, in pursuit of its prey': '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' -- 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, London, 1924, p.69.)
The image, with 'The Terra Nova... in the offing, and beyond... the peaks of the Western Mountains of Victoria Land, seventy miles away.' (Ponting in the Fine Art Society exhibition catalogue) was presumably ordered by Alf Cheetham, Terra Nova's botswain and a veteran of both the Morning's relief expedition (1902-1904) and Shackleton's Nimrod expedition (1907-1909). Cheetham subsequently joined Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917) and drowned after his ship was torpedoed in the North Sea in 1918.
The Terra Nova in McMurdo Sound
stamped 'HG Ponting' (lower right), titled and numbered '25' on the Fine Art Society label on the backing board
blue toned carbon print
23 x 29in. (58.4 x 73.7cm.)
PROVENANCE:
[Alf] Cheetham (inscription on the Fine Art Society label)
The photograph from Ponting's 7 x 5 negative (no. 109. Beautiful broken ice, reflections and Terra Nova) was taken on 7 January 1911.
Alternatively titled 'Death of an Iceberg' by Ponting who describes the events surrounding taking the present photograph, firstly almost breaking through the melting ice with his sledge and photographic apparatus and then peering into the pool in the foreground of this image to see 'a dreaded killer again, in pursuit of its prey': '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' -- 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, London, 1924, p.69.)
The image, with 'The Terra Nova... in the offing, and beyond... the peaks of the Western Mountains of Victoria Land, seventy miles away.' (Ponting in the Fine Art Society exhibition catalogue) was presumably ordered by Alf Cheetham, Terra Nova's botswain and a veteran of both the Morning's relief expedition (1902-1904) and Shackleton's Nimrod expedition (1907-1909). Cheetham subsequently joined Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917) and drowned after his ship was torpedoed in the North Sea in 1918.
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