For 150 years, visitors to the Geology and Mineralogy Gallery who enter through the building’s west hallway have passed beneath frescoes depicting an imposing Arctic landscape. This decor was painted between 1851 and 1864 by François-Auguste Biard. These scenes bring to life a majestic Arctic landscape, where the high peaks of Spitsbergen tower over strange ice under a greyish sky. The artist behind this panorama, François-Auguste Biard, has now been forgotten but in the mid-19th century he was very popular.In 1839, he and his wife Léonie d’Aunet took part in the scientific expedition La Recherche, organised by the French Navy. It was during this expedition that he travelled to Spitzbergen, a land he would paint regularly throughout his career. The fresco he painted for the entrance hall of the Gallery is at the crossroads of scientific, artistic and political issues. Why was this page in French maritime history depicted on the walls of this hallway? With reference to the context of geographical discovers in the mid-19th century, Léo Becka argues that Biard’s fresco sought to show that France was familiar with Spitzbergen and could play a role in the ‘race to the Arctic’. The scientific seriousness of the decor lends its full force to a propaganda campaign that celebrates the capabilities of the French navy and establishes scientists as masters of the Arctic environment.

Léo Becka is visiting PhD student. His research focuses on the history of scientific expeditions in the Arctic. He works under the supervision of Jean-Luc Chappey and Julien Vincent at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne university, in the Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (UMR 8066).

Please join us to discuss Leo’s work on French Arctic expeditions in the 1830s over coffee and cake.