'Aurora'. A very large oil painting (on canvas) of SY 'Aurora', signed in the bottom right-hand corner 'H.D. Hall'
The image size is 590 x 905 mm; the paint is lightly blistered in a few small areas (confined mainly to a portion of the sunset sky), resulting in minimal loss of painted surface. The painting is in the original heavy carved wooden frame (external dimensions 915 x 1225 mm), complete with the mounted gilt-lettered wooden title-plate. On the verso is the large paper label of the Adelaide picture framers Dimond Bros., with '638 Hall' added in pencil. The gilt fillets are tarnished with minor loss, but overall this is a very impressive item in all respects. Harold Dalton Hall (1881-1946) was 'a South Australian marine artist and model maker who worked in oil, watercolour, pen and ink. Harold joined the South Australian Navy and worked on the colonial naval vessel "Protector" as a cabin boy in 1894. While Dalton Hall undertook some training with Adelaide art teacher James Ashton, he was largely self taught. His paintings are distinctive in the use of rich colours and his attention to detail' (South Australian Maritime Museum website). SY 'Aurora' was built in Dundee, Scotland in 1876. 'Her primary use was whaling in the northern seas, and she was built sturdily enough to withstand the heavy weather and ice that would be encountered there. That strength proved useful for Antarctic exploration as well, and between 1911 and 1917 she made five trips to the continent, both for exploration as well as rescue missions' (Wikipedia). Douglas Mawson had purchased her in 1910 for his Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914, and Sir Ernest Shackleton used her for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-1917. The ship was last seen on 20 June 1917, shortly after leaving Newcastle in New South Wales, bound for Chile with a cargo of coal. She disappeared with all hands, and the only trace of her ever found was a barnacle-covered lifebuoy six months later. It is believed she was a casualty of war, possibly being sunk by a mine laid by the German merchant raider 'Wolf'. The painting is undated, but the very strong Adelaide connections make the Mawson period (say 1910 to 1915) seem highly likely.
Item #102236
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