HMS Terror trapped in pack ice in Frozen Strait, from 1836-37 which sold for £38,000 at Bonhams Knightbridge.
THE appeal of this 5 x 7in (13 x 17cm) watercolour lies not in its technical skill but in its subject matter and the name of the amateur artist: the explorer Sir George Back (1796-1878). Although it is neither dated nor inscribed, this hitherto unknown sketch shows Back’s ship, the converted bomb vessel HMS Terror, stranded in the pack ice of the ‘Frozen Strait’ during the long Arctic winter of September 1836 to July 1837. The expedition had intended to map the last sections of the uncharted coast of North America.
The despair of a crew locked in an icy prison for 11 months was recalled by Captain Back himself when writing the second of two books, Narrative of an Expedition in HMS Terror, in 1838. “The time since we left England, though but eight months, seemed longer than three years of my former not unadventurous life. Days were weeks, weeks months, months almost years.”