Surprise art find in Antarctic artefacts
An ‘‘almost perfectly preserved’’ 118-year-old painting has been discovered among penguin excrement, dust and mould-covered papers in Antarctica.
The watercolour was painted by Dr Edward Wilson, who died along with Captain Robert Falcon Scott and three others on their return from the South Pole in 1912.
Antarctic Heritage Trust conservator Josefin Bergmarkjimenez made the find among about 1500 artefacts the trust is conserving from the continent’s huts at Cape Adare, which were built in 1899.
She was cleaning a paper portfolio collected from a bunk in one of the huts at the time.
’’I opened it and there was this gorgeous painting … I got such a fright that I jumped and shut the portfolio again.
’’I then took the painting out and couldn’t stop looking at it – the colours, the vibrancy, it is such a beautiful piece of work. I couldn’t believe it was there.’’
The painting is named 1899 Tree Creeper and has the initial T on it. It depicts a tree creeper bird. The discovery was made in September 2016, but was kept confidential to allow the team to focus on restoring all of the artefacts.
Trust artefact conservation programme manager Lizzie Meek said it was not immediately clear who the artist was, given two expeditions had been based at Cape Adare.
’’The Cape Adare huts were built by Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink’s expedition in 1899 and later used by Captain Scott’s party in 1911.
‘‘We knew the artist was likely to be among the men on those expeditions.’’
As the trust was working to identify the artist, Bergmarkjimenez attended a lecture about Wilson at the University of Canterbury.
Born in 1872, Wilson was a celebrated scientist in his hometown of Cheltenham, England. The town’s art gallery and museum is named The Wilson and has a permanent collection of his work. His bronze statue stands outside the town’s municipal buildings.
‘‘The presenter [at the lecture] showed some of Dr Wilson’s artwork … as soon as I saw his distinctive handwriting, I knew he had painted the tree creeper.
‘‘This made sense as there was also a 1911 newspaper article from The Lyttelton Times in the papers and Scott’s party went to Antarctica via New Zealand.’’
The painting was said to have remained in such good condition because of it being tightly packed between other sheets of paper in complete darkness and cold.
Meek said how the painting came to be in the hut was still a mystery.
‘‘Clearly, he could have taken the painting to Antarctica on either of Scott’s expeditions, but we think it’s more likely the artwork travelled with him in 1911, and somehow made its way from Cape Evans to Cape Adare.’’
The painting would eventually be returned to the hut, as was required by the permit granted to the trust to collect the artefacts.
The trust spent two weeks at the site in 2015, making emergency repairs to the huts and recovering the 1500 items.