This group of photographs presents unprecedented documentation of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s heroic Antarctic expedition. Ponting signed on as official photographer for the venture in 1911, and set up his darkroom in the harsh conditions of Scott’s base camp at Cape Evans on Ross Island, just off the coast of Antarctica. Despite the fact that photographic film was in standard use at the time, Ponting insisted instead on using glass negatives, and this choice accounts for the clarity of the images in this lot. Ponting, who had photographed in his native England, Russia, Japan, and America, was clearly inspired by the new frozen world around him, and his images captured a landscape that was completely alien to viewers of the day. He also took photographs of camp life, the team’s crew and science officers, several of Scott, the expedition’s ship, the Terra Nova, and local wildlife. Ponting’s photographs encompass the beauties and hardships of the expedition.

Scott faced competition in his race to claim the South Pole, from his fellow Britain Ernest Shackleton and the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Scott and a small team, not including Ponting, ultimately did reach the Pole, after great difficulty, only to find that Amundsen had gotten there several weeks before. Demoralized, Scott and his team began the return journey, only to perish in the sub-zero cold. Scott had intended to use Ponting’s photographs, as well as his motion pictures, as an integral part of his post-expedition publicity, exhibitions, and as illustrations for lectures and other public events that would cover the expenses of the journey and provide and him an income. While that role for the photographs would go unfulfilled, Ponting’s images remain an indelible document of the expedition and of the human drive to explore.