Captain Scott's birthday dinner (6 June 1911)

Details

Herbert George Ponting (1871-1935)
Captain Scott's birthday dinner (6 June 1911)
stamped 'H.G. Ponting/COPYRIGHT' (lower right), inscribed and numbered 'Capt Scotts last Birthday Party 51' on the Fine Art Society label on the reverse, inscribed '46/Exhibition' on the reverse
brown toned carbon print
unframed
18 x 23¾in. (45.7 x 60.3cm.)

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Lot Essay

'Tuesday, June 6. -- ...It is my birthday, a fact I might have forgotten, but my kind people did not. ...After my walk I discovered that great preparations were in progress for a special dinner, and when the hour for that meal arrived we sat down to a sumptuous spread with our sledge banners hung about us. Clissold's especially excellent seal soup, roast mutton and red currant jelly, fruit salad, asparagus and chocolate -- such was our menu. For drink we had cider cup, a mystery not yet fathomed, some sherry and a liqueur.' (Scott's Last Expedition, London, 1914, I, pp.304-5)

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