The Ruin of a Hut On Masafuera

Carl Skottsberg

From the collection of Danish critic and author Georg Bröchner, who wrote for the British art magazine "The Studio" in the early 20th century. This watercolor is done at the top of a letter to Brochner by the famed botanist and naturalist Carl Skottsberg.

Carl Skottsberg was appointed the official botanist for the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901 - 1903, traveling to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego to record the native flora found in the southerly regions. He would return once again with his wife from 1907 to 1909. He learned that a penal colony had once been assembled on one of his stops, Mas Afuera (now the Alejandro Selkirk Island) of the Juan Fernandez Islands off the coast of Chile, during much of the 19th century. He recounted his discovery of the huts to Brochner in a letter illustrated with a watercolor of one of the structures surrounded by local flora:

"...the ruin of a hut on Masafuera, about 2200' above sea level, dating from the time of the convicts (15 years ago), as it looked in 1917. While scrambling up and down the steep and narrow ridges of this marvelous island, my wife and myself used to halt here. The trees are Myrceugenia Schultzei. Our thoughts and dreams are still there.”

The letter goes on for 2 pages and is signed: "Carl Scottsberg, Botanical Garden, Gothenberg, Sept. 14. 1924."