DE GERLACHE ADRIEN: (1866-1934) Baron de Gerlache. Belgian Navy Officer who led the Belgian Antarcti...

DE GERLACHE ADRIEN: (1866-1934) Baron de Gerlache. Belgian Navy Officer who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-99. Very attractive and fine signed 6.5 x 4 photograph `Souvenir affectueux d´A. de Gerlache´, the image depicting the Belgica, trapped in the ice of Bellinghausen Sea in 1898. Signed in bold dark ink to the matted lower right corner. Double matted and very attractively framed, with its original contemporary frame, and glazed to an overall of 12 x 10 (30cm x 25cm). Also bearing the Belgica attractive commemorative ribbon, with the ship name and Belgian flag colours. VG £800-1200 The Belgica was a former Norwegian whaling ship, first called Patria, which was fully refit after Gerlache purchased it in 1896. The Belgian Antarctic expedition left Antwerp on the Belgica on 16th August 1897. The multinational crew included Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook. Amundsen who would later led the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage by sea, from 1903 to 1906, and the first expedition to the South Pole in 1911, and Cook who claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21st 1908. On 28th February 1898, de Gerlache's expedition became trapped in the ice of the Bellinghausen Sea, near Peter Island. Despite efforts of the crew to free the ship, they founded themselves forced to spend the winter on Antarctica. From 17th May to 23rd July, total darkness set in. What followed were 7 months of hardship trying to free the ship and its crew from the ice. Several men lost their sanity, and many suffered badly from scurvy. Finally, on 15th February 1899, they managed to slowly move through a channel they had cleared before. It took them a month to cover the first seven miles. The expedition returned to Antwerp on 5th November 1899, more than two years after.