Classic Ponting photograph from Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913), showing Lieut. Evans crouching down on his haunches washing his hands in the Antarctic sea. Evans, who rose to the rank of Admiral and who was raised to the Peerage as the first Baron Mountevans, served on the crew of the relief ship on the Discovery expedition and was planning his own Antarctic expedition when Scott offered him the post of second-in-command of the Terra Nova expedition.

The Terra Nova expedition was supposed to be the high-water mark of the Golden Age of Antarctic exploration; led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition was to have been the first to reach the South Pole, marking the event with the planting of the Union Jack flag. However the more professionally equipped Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen got there first. Nevertheless Scott's expedition will always be the one best remembered on account of the tremendous courage and bravery shown by Scott and his companions, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, and Evans on their return from the Pole in appalling conditions - perhaps best exemplified by Lawrence 'Titus' Oates who walked from the tent into a blizzard whilst suffering from frostbite and gangrene, knowing that he was not going to survive the journey but hoping that his self-sacrifice might help the others survive.

The photographs were originally published by the Fine Art Society in 1914 in larger format using a different process. It is difficult to date images such as ours, printed at a later date from the original negatives, however based on external evidence from previous examples we date the present image to circa 1935.

Silver gelatin print, mounted, framed and glazed, captioned below image on mount. Image size: 288 x 213 mm; framed: 355 x 279 mm.