CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND—According to BBC News, a picture believed to have been painted by British scientist and medical doctor Edward Wilson has been found in a hut in Antarctica. The hut was built by Norwegian explorers at Cape Adare in 1899, and was used by Wilson and the other members of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition to the South Pole in 1912. Concealed in a pile of papers covered in mold and penguin excrement, the painting was discovered by Josefin Bergmark-Jimenez, a paper conservator for the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust. “I got such a fright that I jumped and shut the portfolio again,” she said. “I then took the painting out and couldn’t stop looking at it—the colors, the vibrancy, it is such a beautiful piece of work.” The painting depicts a dead Tree Creeper, a species of bird from the Northern Hemisphere. Bergmark-Jimenez said the distinctive handwriting on the painting, which includes the date, the bird’s species, and the initial “T,” led to her identification of Dr. Wilson as the artist. The conserved painting will be returned to the hut, which is part of an Antarctic Specially Protected Area. To see paintings made during a nineteenth-century expedition to the Arctic, go to "An Arctic Expedition in Watercolor."
