France, Charles Tellier, 1912, a bronze plaque by L.B. Bernstamm, bust left, rev. steam vessel Le Frigorifique under sail to left, 65 x 49mm (BDM –). Remains of paper label on edge and a small reverse edge knock, otherwise good very fine and extremely rare (£80-100)

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Small Collection of Maritime Medals.

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Charles Tellier (1828-1913), the son of an industrialist from Amiens, created his first refrigerator in 1858 and had perfected his technique of mechanical compression by the mid-1860s. In 1868 he installed an armoire à conservation on an English ship, City of Rio de Janeiro, outward-bound for Argentina; after a 23-day return passage the meat in it was deemed fit for consumption. Following the Franco-Prussian war, Tellier resumed his experiments and equipped a small steamer, which he renamed Le Frigorifique, with refrigerators running on methyl ether. With a cargo of meat loaded at Rouen, the ship left on 30 September 1876. Bad weather forced a stopover in Lisbon and it was not until 23 December, 105 days later, that Le Frigorifique arrived in Buenos Aires, yet the meat was undamaged and some of it was consumed in a banquet aboard ship soon afterwards. The depiction of the vessel on the plaque is taken from a contemporary oil painting originally belonging to Tellier, who was perhaps 20 years ahead of his time and whose feats were largely overlooked; he died destitute in Paris in 1913.

Léopold Bernard Bernstamm (b.1859), Russian sculptor from Riga, active from the age of 14; settled in Paris in 1885 and was a regular exhibitor at the Salon. Further biographical details are sold with the lot. Reverse only illustrated, reduced