Lot 2: Jens Erik Carl Rasmussen (1841-1893)

Erik R”de discovers Greenland signed and dated 'C. Rasmussen -/1875.' (lower right) oil on canvas 541/4 x 88in. (137.7 x 223.5cm.) Erik R”de (Eir¡kr Thorvaldsson, 'Eric the Red') sailed with Vikings from Iceland in 986 to colonise and farm Greenland. He had spent the previous three years exploring the country: 'The name 'Greenland', which he coined for it, may have been a promotional stunt, but by this time the limited amount of cultivable land in Iceland was already occupied, and larger-scale emigration of several hundred Icelanders with Eir¡k was due mainly to land hunger....[the] flourishing Norse colonies in Greenland ceased to exist altogether some time before about 1500.' (R. Vaughan, The Arctic, A History, Stroud, 1994, pp.44-6.) Rasmussen studied at the Copenhagen Academy (1862-1866) and went on to specialise in Greenland subjects. He drowned in 1893 en route from Greenland to Denmark.