Lot 530
ARCTIC INTEREST:
GRATH WIELIN (Australian, Fl.c.1908-1917)
LIEUT. PEARY EXPEDITION - SEALING IN THE ARCTIC
Signed, inscribed with title and dated 1917, watercolour and gouache
34 x 49cm.;
with two books (J. M. Scott's `Gino Watkins`, London, 1935; and F. Spencer Chapman's `Watkins' Last Expedition`, London, 1934); and (not Arctic-related) three small sketches en grisaille by Edoardo de Martino and another watercolour (7 items)
* Robert Peary's controversial and widely disputed claim to have reached the North Pole in April 1909 has exercised polar historians for over a century. This Wielen subject is retrospective at best as Peary did not return to the Arctic after 1909 and he retired formally in 1914. Watkins is remembered principally for the British Arctic Air Route Expedition of 1930-31 but he died at just 25 whilst seal hunting in Greenland in 1932.
