[ARCTIC EXPLORATION] A Summer Evening, July, 1894. From Nansen’s “Farthest North”.

London : Newton & Co., [1897]. Photographic glass magic lantern slide, 82 x 82 mm (mount); the black paper border has a ms. caption in white ink in right-hand margin: ‘A Summer Evening / July 1894’, and a printed label in the left-hand margin ‘From Nansen’s “Farthest North,” (Copyright)’; maker’s printed label partially visible at upper left; old collection number in ms. lower left; the slide is in excellent condition, with no chips, scratches or other marks.

Scarce lantern slide reproducing one of the photographs taken on the first Fram expedition (1893-96) under Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. Photographs on the expedition were taken by Nansen himself as well as some of the other crew members. Although they did not reach the North Pole, Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen, with a team of Samoyed dogs and sledges, achieved a record Farthest North latitude of 86°13.6′N.

The set of Farthest North slides was first issued by Newton & Co. early in 1897, around the same time as Nansen’s published account of the same name. The following advertisement for the set appeared in the firm’s 1899 trade catalogue, Catalogue of magic lanterns, dissolving-view apparatus, and lantern slides: “499. We have obtained the sole right to re-produce as lantern slides, the pictures in Dr Nansen’s ‘Farthest North’. These Slides are printed from the same negatives as those used by Dr Nansen at his own lectures. Of these Slides, ‘The Times’ of February 9th, 1897, says: ‘A series of singularly beautiful photographic illustrations of the many interesting and exciting incidents of the Expedition.’ The above 52 Slides have been selected as forming a fairly comprehensive set.”