Monday, November 11, 2019

MOUNT SABINE BY CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH


CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH (1776-1859)
Mount Sabine  (3,729m - 12, 205 ft) 
Antarctica (Victoria Land) 

In Mount Sabine and Possession Islands -  Watercolour from  Views of Polar region
Yale Center for British arts

The mountain
Mount Sabine (3,729m - 12, 205 ft)  is a prominent, relatively snow-free mountain rising between the heads of Murray Glacier and Burnette Glacier. Discovered on January 11, 1841, by Captain James Ross, Royal Navy, who named this feature for Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sabine of the Royal Artillery, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, one of the most active supporters of the expedition.
Mount Sabine is part of The Admiralty Mountains (alternatively Admiralty Range), a large group of high mountains and individually named ranges and ridges in northeastern Victoria Land, Antarctica. This mountain group is bounded by the Ross Sea, the Southern Ocean, and by the Dennistoun, Ebbe, and Tucker glaciers. The mountain range is situated on the Pennell Coast, a portion of Antarctica lying between Cape Williams and Cape Adare.
The Admiralty Mountains are divided into the Dunedin Range, Homerun Range, and Lyttelton Range and named them for the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty under whose orders Captain James Ross served.

The artist 
Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Hamilton Smith,  was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier, and... spy as well !. His military career began in 1787, when he studied at the Austrian academy for artillery and engineers at Mechelen and Leuven in Belgium (his native country). Although his military service, which ended in 1820 and included the Napoleonic Wars, saw him travel extensively (including the West Indies, Canada, United States, Southern and Northern Europe and ...Antarctica).
As a prolific self-taught illustrator (over 38,000 drawings!) He left quite an important number of books of  beautifully watercolored landscapes taken all around the world. those nooks of watercolors are nowadays in the collections of  the Yale Center From British Art. Among them  :
Views of France, Volume I (81 watercolors), Views of France, Volume II (93 watercolors), 
Views of England and Wales, Volume I (82  watercolors),  Views of England and Wales, Volume II (74  watercolors),
Views of Northern Europe, Volume I (68watercolors) , Views of Northern Europe, Volume II (78)  watercolors),  
Views of Polar Regions (75  watercolors) (see above) 
Views of Spain, Volume I (69 watercolors), Views of Spain, Volume II (72 watercolors), 
But one of his noteworthy achievements was an 1800 experiment to determine which color should be used for military uniforms.  He is also known in military history circles for Costume of the Army of the British Empire, produced towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and an accurate depiction of contemporary British uniform.
As an antiquarian, he also produced, in collaboration with Samuel Rush Meyrick, Costume of the Original Inhabitants of the British Islands, 1815, and The Ancient Costume of England, with historical illustrations of medieval knights, ladies, shipsm and battles. 
He also wrote on the history of the Seven Years' War and TheNatural history of dogs.
Quite a productive fellow !

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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau