Antique Print of a Winter House in Greenland, 1768

1768 · Views & Engravings

Antique Print of a Winter House in Greenland, 1768

Name: Antique Print of a Winter House in Greenland, 1768
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-12645-42
Price: 255 USD
Availability: InStock

$255

€230 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1768
Maker: Prevost
Kind: Views & Engravings
Size: 25 × 17.5 cm (9.8 × 6.9 in)
Period: Colonial America
Reference: BG-12645-42

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

A winter house of the Greenlanders, shown in plan and in cross section, an original copper engraving drawn and engraved by B.L. Prevost for the Histoire generale des voyages by Antoine Francois Prevost d'Exiles, dated 1768. The upper half is lettered "Plan d'une Maison d'Hiver, des Groenlandois, pour trois Familles" and the lower "Coupe sur la longueur d'une Maison d'Hiver".

The plan shows a long, narrow dwelling entered through a passage, with three raised platforms ("estrades ou lits") for the three families, each with its own lamp and window, and a key of numbered items below it. In the section drawing, the long low house has a flat roof carried on posts, with families seated and standing inside near their lamps and pots hung over them. A man with a long staff stands in the foreground, and another figure walks at the left among the snow-streaked hills.

The print gives European readers a precise idea of how a Greenland family lived through the winter, and it is a useful reference for the early ethnography of the Arctic. Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of North America.

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