[Le Breton, Louis Auguste Marie] 1818-1866 :[The Astrolabe caught in pack-ice in Antarctica, February 1838] J. Dumont d'Urville Astrolabe command. 1838.

Shows the Astrolabe, caught bow first in pack-ice with the sea behind the ship. Three groups of sailors are hauling on ropes at the ice to help the ship to penetrate it. One man is attacking the ice with a pick-axe.

The inscription may have been added later by another hand and this scene may show the Zelee, rather than the Astrolabe. Attribution to Le Breton is not certain, although he is the most likely artist. The drawing does not match any of the lithographs published in the official account, showing the Astrolabe or Zelee in the pack-ice, although several lithographs do show men on the ice around the ships and one showing the Astrolabe almost out of the pack-ice on 9 February 1838 (Plate 24, Atlas pittoresque, vol I) is very similar although viewed from the right of the ship's bow, rather than the left as this one is.

The Astrolabe and Zelee encountered Antarctic pack-ice on 4 February 1838 and were trapped in it until 9 February not far from the South Orkneys. The two ships also made a return visit in January 1840, going further south past the Antarctic Circle and claimed Adelie Land for France. It is possible that the scene depicted shows the latter episode, although the inscription indicates that the 1838 episode is shown and the ships were not trapped in 1840. The scene corresponds with Dumont d'Urville's description of events on 4 Feb., 1838: "The Astrolabe moved forward a distance of two or three times its own length and stopped. We then had to use every means at our disposal. Men climbed down onto the ice to tie ropes to the large floes and those who remained on board hauled on them to move painfully forward, while others on the ice tried to push aside with picks, pincers and pickaxes the blocks which would form too hard an obstacle for the stem of our corvette" (Voyage au pole sud, vol II, pp. 91-2, translated and reproduced in Dunmore, J. French explorers in the Pacific. Oxford, 1969, p. 348.

Other Titles - [La corvette l'Astrolabe prise dans la banquise, fevrier 1838]

Inscriptions: Recto - beneath image - J. Dumont D'Urville Astrolabe command. 1838. J. Dumont D'Urville. [includes some illegible letters]

Quantity: 1 watercolour(s).

Physical Description: Ink, watercolour and Chinese white on paper 269 x 209 mm