Those three guys have become known as the best preserved ice mummies of the 19th century. Petty Officer John Torrington, Private William Braine and Able Seaman John Hartnell were the first casualties of the doomed Franklin Expedition. They all died in a rather short time span of pneumonia, tuberculosis and lead poisoning and were buried next to each other on Beechey Island in the Canadian Arctic. Their gravestones are still there today.
But they did not become famous until they were exhumed by Professor Owen Beattie and his team in 1984.
I've read the account in Beattie's book "Frozen in time" and just
had to paint them. How could they have looked when they were alive? All I have as a guide are photographs of the preserved bodies, and until someone exhumes them again there will be only that very limited number of old photos.
So you can't really call my work an "archeological reconstruction", but merely an "artistic interpretation".
Want see their mummies? Warning! They're
not kawaii desu possibly not worksafe:
[link]The notes are my own.
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`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Watched the photo and I really think you did a good job, also with checking the minor details like the eye color or their beards.
Price list? You mean for prints? I can't make good quality prints of these, since I lost the original 300 dpi file.
Their corpses are not the only ones to be fairly well preserved up in the Arctic circle. In 1969 the corpse of American Explorere Charles Francis Hall was exhumed in Greenland, and found to have arsenic in him. Either from patent medicines he used, or by suicide, or by murder - possibly by the German doctor on Hall's Polaris Expedition. Read (if you haven't) Chauncey Loomis's WEIRD AND TRAGIC SHORES.