Lot 74E email save

PEARY, Admiral. Archive of photos, trunk, 1901 exp

Sign In to see what this sold for

Archive containing: 305 photographs, 24 glass plate negatives, a wooden trunk used during the expedition,, newspaper ephemera, and the menu from the Arctic Club's 1902 annual dinner signed by 55 members of the club. Provenance: Herbert Berri. Includes specifically: 1) A wooden ships-trunk on which is painted "Peary Arctic Club/ S. S. Erik/ Sydney," with the letter "B" inside a diamond for "Berri." Trunk measures 27" L x 14 H" x 15" W. Condition: some rubbing to paint, chips and light wear. 2) 305 original contact prints on the sheets of a disbounded album held in place by corner guards (each 100 x 125 mm). Condition: some creases, short tears, soiling, and age toning. an important archive of the peary relief expedition including 305 photographic prints developed on board the ship Erik. The first 60 photographs depict members of the Erik expedition as well as Peary's and the Windward's crew in both leisurely and formal poses. These include a rare photograph of Peary's African-American assistant, Mathew Henson, Peary's physician and competitor, Dr. Frederick Cook, Captain Peary among the Inuk, both Wyckoff and Berri with their cameras and the deck of the ship. The next 140 photographs depict the outdoor camps of the crew and the Inuk, striking individual and group portraits of inuk children and adults both on board the ship and outside their homes, canoeing, cleaning animals, an important picture of peary's daughter marie known as the "snowbaby," various tombstones including two in Hebrew, the hunting of whales and walruses, and large icebergs. The remaining 105 photographs depict places in Canada such as Quebec, Montmorency Falls, Sydney and the home of Governor Nielson along with several other shots of Inuk camps and seascapes. 3) 24 gelatin and lactate glass plates, each wrapped in archival paper and in protective boxes. 21 measuring: 100 x 85 mm; 3 measuring 101 x 127 mm. Condition: some light marginal chipping to emulsion, some toning, some light scuffing to emulsion. Four of these plates correspond to photographs found in the album. Notable is a plate of Dr. Cook at the wheel of the Erik. 4) Arctic Club Dinner Menu from the "Ninth Annual Dinner of Arctic Club, Union Square Hotel, New York, December 27, 1902." Small folio in original printed wrappers (147 x 115 mm). Condition: disbound, chipped with losses, remnants of black tape. signed by berri on cover and 55 members of the club, including dr. cook and arctic outfitters abercrombie & fitch. 5) Newspaper and other ephemera. In the summer of 1901 a relief expedition set out in search of arctic explorer Admiral Robert Peary, who had ventured north in 1898. Peary had been in poor health when he had been visited by the secretary of the Peary Arctic Club in 1899, Herbert Bridgman. Bridgman reported that although seven of Peary's toes had been amputated, he refused to leave with him on the Diana to receive treatment. Bridgman delivered this news, along with a personal letter to Peary's wife, Josephine. She immediately began making plans for her own relief expedition aboard the Windward, and she brought in tow her seven year old daughter, Marie. When the Windward did not return and no word was received from Peary, preparations for a third relief expedition were begun. The Peary Arctic Club had been founded in 1898 to enable Peary's explorations. Its wealthy members each promised to pay $1000 per year for four years to keep Peary in supplies and equipment. Now the group was asked to offer an additional $500 for the right to accompany the relief team in search of Peary and his family aboard the ship Erik. Much of what is known about the journey is from the diary kept by Peary Arctic Club member Clarence Wykoff, an heir to the company that became the Remington Typewriter Company, and his friends from his Cornell days, Louis Bement and Alfred Church. They were joined by Herbert Berri, son of William Berri who was the owner of Brooklyn's The Standard Union newspaper, and his professor at New York's Polytechnic Institute, Limond C. Stone. The photographs and negatives, wooden trunk, and ephemeral items in this archive belonged to Herbert Berri. The most notable person on this voyage was the physician and surgeon Dr. Frederick Church, who was later to become Peary's fierce rival in the discovery of the North Pole. Cook was second in command only to Herbert Bridgman, a journalist with the The Standard Union and the Peary Arctic Club's secretary. Although they were told that the Erik was a throroughly modern ship with an expert crew, the guests quickly found the opposite to be true, and the diaries describe the rancid condition of food, the poor perfomance of the ship, and the lackluster drunken antics of the crew which resulted in the guests having to perform basic duties while on board. While at leisure at least 6 men on the ship took photographs. It is not always easy to identify the photographer of each picture because several cameras were on board, and the exchange of cameras and trading of photographs was common Only, the photographs taken by Dr. Cook have been cleary identified with his copyright. The photographs in this group are made from both gelatin dry glass plates and, from notes in Wyckoff's diary, it is known that he puchased lactate dry plates for his camera. Dry plates were advantageous for arctic explorations because they could be pre-treated and negatives could be exposed while on board and stored until they could be processed. The diaries also report that prints were made while on board using contact printing process that required no chemicals. The photo album originally belonged to Herbert Berri, as did the trunk and other items. His photographs well document most aspects of the expedition, including the Inuk peoples they encountered (also the ethnological subject of Dr. Cook). The Erik located Robert Peary and his family aboard the Windward in August of 1901. They learned that Peary had spent the winter at Fort Conger, 200 miles away from his wife and daughter who were stranded aboard the Windward. Josephine Peary was also shocked to learn that her husband had fathered a daughter by an Inuk woman but decided to stay by him remembering his health woes. Although examined by Dr. Cook and urged to leave the arctic by all involved, Peary was determined to stay and did not return with the Erik. Peary would claim to discover the North Pole on a later expedition in April of 1909, writing in his journal, "The Pole at last. The prize of 3 centuries, my goal for 20 years." Reference: Boreal Ties: Photographs and Two Diaries of the 1901 Peary Relief Expedition. Edited by Kim Fairley Gillis & Silas Hibbard Ayer III. University of New Mexico Press, 2002. A copy of this book will be included with the lot.

View Bloomsbury Auctions next auction.

Similar lots up for auction