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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR ERIC STEWART MARSHALL, SURGEON AND CARTOGRAPHER, BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION, 1907-1909 (Lots 173-180) Marshall met Shackleton at a party in 1906 and, 'impressed by [his] enthusiastic banter' (Riffenburgh) volunteered for the expedition on the spot. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Marshall had just qualified as surgeon from St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was also to become one of the primary photographers on the expedition and his physical strength (he had rowed for his college and captained St Bartholomew's rugby team) led to him being included in Shackleton's southern party. He shared a cubicle with Adams next to Shackleton's room in the hut at Cape Royds ('so tidy that it was known as 'No. 1 Park Lane'. Adams' shelves housed a complete set of Dickens as well as books about the French Revolution and Napoleon, whereas Marshall's were dominated by medical supplies, as the small area also served as the local surgery.' B. Riffenburgh, Nimrod, London, 2004, p.183) Here Marshall made up his 'forced march' tablets, a cocaine preparation, which would help see them through to their depots after they had exhausted their rations on the desperate march back from their Farthest South in January 1909. Marshall surveyed the land on the southern journey, using a theodolite, and, when they were in extreme circumstances, by dead reckoning, as at their estimated Farthest South on 9 January 1909. Marshall proved a difficult companion on the expedition. Arrogant, negative, and sardonic, he irritated Shackleton ('By God he has not played the game & is not capable of doing so & a consummate liar & practised hypocrite') and was in turn, upset by his leader ('Vacillating, erratic, & a liar, easily scared, moody & surly, a boaster'). Out of the confines of the hut, Marshall, although criticised for his 'slack trace', proved his worth on the sledging journey, taking over after Shackleton's collapse on the return from the Farthest South and making the lone march to the food depot to bring back supplies after the rest of the party were too 'knocked up' to go on. Marshall distanced himself from the celebrations after the expedition returned to England. He was the sole survivor of the British Ornithologists Union Expedition to the unknown interior of Dutch New Guinea in 1911 and served as a medical officer in North Russia at the end of the war -- the legacy of his career a lifelong interest in nutrition and the treatment of deficiency diseases.

George Edward Marston (1882-1940)

Aurora Australis

Details

George Edward Marston (1882-1940)
Aurora Australis
signed '.GEORGE.MARSTON.' (lower right), stencilled 'B43937 25.1lb TINS BRITISH ANTARCTIC SHIP NIMROD LYTTELTON LAND PARTY TEA 0.2.1' and with remains of wax customs seal on the reverse, with typed label 'AURORA AUSTRALIS. Original painting by George Marston on Venesta board. Painted in the Hut in the Antarctic in 1908 and re- produced in the 'Heart of the Antarctic'.'
oil on venesta board
17 5/8 x 23 1/8in. (44.7 x 58.6cm.)

Provenance

Eric Stewart Marshall (1879-1963), by whom given to his godson.

Literature

E.H. Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic, London, 1909, vol.I, coloured plate (The "Aurora Australis"), facing p.216.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

'About the same time [towards the end of March] we began to see the aurora, and night after night, except when the moon was at its full or the sky overcast, the waving mystic lines of light were thrown across the heavens, waxing and waning rapidly, falling into folds and curtains, spreading out into great arches and sometimes shooting vertical beams almost to the zenith. Sometimes, indeed often, the aurora hovered over Mount Erebus, attracted no doubt by this great isolated mass of rock, sometimes descending to the lower slopes and always giving us and interest that never failed. When the familiar cry of "aurora" was uttered by some one who had been outside, most of us rushed out to see what new phase this mysterious phenomenon would take, and we were indeed fortunate in the frequency and brilliancy of the displays. Mawson, as physicist, obtained a number of interesting notes which throw new light on this difficult subject' (E.H. Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, p.216).

An unusually large picture by Marston painted in the hut at Cape Royds in 1908 on a cannibalised sheet of venesta board from the expedition's packing cases. These were most famously appropriated by Bernard Day and cut into boards for the Aurora Australis, the first book to be printed in the Antarctic, illustrated by Marston with another image of the Aurora Australis on its title page (for which see lot 181).

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