Antique Print of a Winter House in Greenland, 1768

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.