illuminator newsletter #24
BREAKING
23 July 2023
Sotheby’s of London is claiming to have the lost 2nd set of Franklin daguerreotypes. Two sets were known to have existed (the other held at SPRI in Cambridge). Auction to take place in September. Only the portrait of Le Vesconte (above) was released today.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/travel-atlas-maps-photographs
SINCE THE LAST ISSUE
26 May 2023
On a visit to the Parks Canada dive team’s headquarters, Russell Potter makes an identification of an artifact from HMS Erebus as having belonged to the expedition’s photographic equipment.
https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-visit-with-parks-canada-part-3-of-3.html
26 May 2023
Olga Kimmins unties the “horrid radical and indifferent speller” knot, commonly attributed to Sophia Cracroft regarding Captain Crozier.
https://www.thethousandthpart.com/notes/on-horrid-radicals-and-indifferent-spellers
1 June 2023
The Opels at Trimaris blog have the story of a how a mail package from McClure’s search expedition eventually came through. [German language.]
https://www.trimaris.de/2023/06/01/12-jahre-in-der-arktis-begraben/
UPCOMING
9-10 December 2023.
Dates for Terror Camp III have been announced. Submissions open til September 1st.
https://www.terror.camp/call-for-applications
LAST WORD
16 July 2023
The Inuit-made toy sledge from King William Island — recovered by McClintock, and likely made from HMS Erebus wood — has now been given its own display spot in Greenwich’s Polar Worlds (more).
Also, the Tate in London has moved Millais’ The North-West Passage down to eye-level (more).
The End.