Lot 57: Pierre Jean David D'Angers (French, 1788-1856) 5x5in(13x13cm)

A wax portrait bust of Captain Sir John Franklin RN. Modelled on a slate base with a scratched title "Captain Franklin", the bust itself signed "David 1828". In original gilt frame. 5x5in(13x13cm)

PROVENANCE:
Miss Sophia Cracroft [Franklin's niece], Kensington (see label on the reverse)

A wax relief sculpture for one of D'Angers extensive series of Bronze portrait medallions. There is an example of the bronze plaque (1829) from this wax in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG 5435).

Captain (Sir) John Franklin (1786-1847) Naval Officer and Arctic Explorer.
Born in Lincolnshire, he joined the Royal Navy at 15 and served at both Copenhagen and Trafalgar, as well as exploring the coasts of Australia with Captain Matthew Flinders. In 1818 he was given command of the brig Trent to explore the Arctic under Captain Buchan, trying to find an open water route to the North Pole, only to be turned back at Spitzbergen by pack ice.

The following year he was appointed to lead an overland expedition from Hudson's Bay to chart the Northern coast of Canada which lasted three years, the expedition enduring many hardships, being reduced to eating their boots at one stage. In 1823 he made a further trip down the Mackenzie River to the Beaufort Sea. In 1828 he was knighted by King George lV.

After spending seven years as Governor of Tasmania, he returned to England to take up the command of a British Expedition to chart the Northwest Passage. Leaving in May 1845, the expedition was last seen on July 26th in Lancaster Sound, anchored to an ice floe. Nothing was heard for the next two years and after three years (the time when their food supplies nominally ran out) the Admiralty offered a reward of £20,000 to anyone finding them. Over 25 expeditions were mounted and by 1850 some relics and the remains of three crew had been discovered on Beechey Island. Four years later the fate of the remainder was discovered from Inuit hunters, who indicated that all the crew had perished from hunger, cold and disease after the ships had become icebound. Franklin's body was never recovered.