Engravings From Sir John Franklin's Expeditions

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 Prior to photography a regular position on a scientific expedition was an artist. As well as recording flora and fauna, they would draw landscapes of the areas they traveled through.

These engravings are from the expeditions of Sir John Franklin. Franklin was a British naval officer who, in the early to mid 19th Century, explored parts of northern Canada and the arctic. In 1845 he was lost on his last exploration -- an attempt to find the Northwest Passage.

These images are from the Luna Archive of his various travels. There are more after the jump, and of course many more at the Luna Archive, including etchings of flora, fauna and the indigenous Eskimaux (I love that archaic spelling).

Through the eyes of strangers

It is always interesting to look at drawings of foreign places, and foreigners, from the days that predated photography.

The artists of those eras must have grown up in very homogeneous societies, and as a result they frequently struggle depicting the visible ethnic details of foreigners.

Usually, these drawing are done by Europeans during the Age of Exploration. The blog Japan Post has a post Pictures of foreigners from 17th/18th century Japan that links to a Kyushu University digital archive that has pictures drawn by the Japanese of their view of foreigners.

Europeans are included, but there are also many pictures of other nationalities. Frequently, it is difficult to place where the people drawn were supposed to be from. for example, in the picture to the left, I can't quite decide if they're Polynesians or American Indians (D'oh, the linked website says they're Brazillians).

The Kyushu University site is in Japanese. I think this is the correct link to the gallery page of drawings of foreigners. The complete list of galleries appears to be located here.