Ernest Shackleton; Caricature in Vanity Fair Supplement October 6, 1909 with tipped in Shackleton signature card

London: Vanity Fair, 1909. First Edition. Fine. Vanity Fair artist Kite, pseudonym of unknown artist. [15.5x10.5in]; Hentschel-Colortype illustration caricature by Kite [pseudonym of unknown artist], "The South Pole" (Lieutenant Shackleton) with black ink autograph "Ernest Shackleton" on card paper [2.5 x 4.5in]; Framed archival mounting on black matte. This Vanity Fair issue was after Shackleton returned from the "Nimrod" Antarctic Expedition [British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09] which he and three others reached 88 degrees south or 112 miles from the South Pole. They turned back due to doubtful food and fuel supply to return safely to the expedition's (truncated) base at Cape Royds. He later commented to his wife that "...I thought, dear, that you would rather have a live ass than a dead lion." For the discovery of the route to the South Pole, discovery of the magnetic pole and the first ascent of Mt. Erebus, he was knighted by King Edward VII. The investiture ceremony was later than when this portrait was issued.

In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton [1874-1922] led the Endurance expedition [Imperial Trans-Antarctica 1914-17] which prematurely ended in the ship being crushed by ice in the Weddell Sea. All of the 28 stranded crew were eventually saved by the leadership of Shackleton and Worsley with Tom Crean, McNeish, Macarty and Vincent on a harrowing 800 mile south sea journey in a 22 foot whaling boat, James Caird, to South Georgia Is. and then crossing the unmapped mountains and glaciers to the Stromness whaling station. (Inventory #: 12948)