Classic Ponting photograph from Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913) taken on 8th January 1911, showing the first of the motor sledges to be offloaded - soon to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

'Three motor sledges were taken South. One was lost by sinking through the sea-ice. The remaining two gave a great deal of trouble as they were continually breaking down. Thanks to Mr. Day's skill, however, they were the means of transporting several tons of stores to the Great Ice Barrier, where they were abandoned.' (Extract from Fine Art Society's catalogue of Ponting's photographs of the 1910-1918 British Antarctic 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 intended to be the first to reach the South Pole, and to mark the event with the planting of the Union Jack. However the more professionally equipped Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen got there first. Nevertheless this 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: 215 x 288 mm; framed: 282 x 350 mm.

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