Astrolabe and Zelée off Elephant Island

Goupil was the official artist on Dumont d'Urville's third circumnavigation of 1837-40 which sailed from Toulon in September 1837 in search of the South Magnetic Pole and the Antarctic continent. D'Urville made his first attempt to reach the continent in early 1838, heading south from Tierra del Fuego for the Weddell Sea. He reached just below 62 degrees S and was blocked and trapped in the ice for several days, breaking free on 9 February and heading west to a coastline he named and claimed for his King and country 'Louis Philippe Land' and 'Joinville Island', charting and mapping in March 1838 the northern extremity of what is now known as 'GrahamLand'. He retreated from as far south of 63 degrees 27 in late March towards Chile as scurvy broke out on his ships. He went on to explore the Pacific between May 1838 and October 1839 before returning to explore the Antarctic waters again in 1840.Goupil died from dysentry contracted in Sumatra on the Pacific sweep in Hobart on 1 January 1840. He was replaced as artist on the voyage by the expedition surgeon Louis Le Breton. Drawings by both artists were published as lithographs in the expansive 'Atlas Pittoresque'which accompanied Dumont d'Urville's narrative of the expedition, published in ten volumes, Paris 1844. The New South Shetland Islands were first reconnoitered in January-February 1838: 'L'île Eléphant offre encore une terre fort élevée, parsemée de nombreux pitons dont la teinte noire se détache d'une manière très remarquable sur les plaines de neige et de glaces qui couvrent tout le reste de l'île, car la longue-vue ne nous permet pas d'y découvrir la moindre trace de végétation, ni même un seul espace d'un demi-mille d'étendue où l'homme puisse facilement porter ses pas' (Dumont d'Urville, op. cit., 'Histoire du Voyage', Paris, 1842, I, pp. 140-41).
Elephant Island would later become famous as the first landfall of Shackleton and his marooned crew on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17.