February 2007 the Faroe Islands issued a stamp of 5.50Kr which depict the French corvette La RECHERCHE, below is given what the Faroe Post web-site gives on this stamp.
http://www.faroestamps.fo/index.php?sid ... ce#ENGLISH
On the 13th June 1838, the French corvette La RECHERCHE left Le Havre in France, bound for Northern Scandinavia. Onboard there were several French scientists and artists, who together with Scandinavian colleagues, should explore the coastal regions of the High North and the surrounding oceans. The expedition should last for almost three years. The research included geology, botany, marine-biology, astronomy, terrestrial magnetism and northern lights – but also subjects like linguistics, cultural history and anthropology.
In the years 1838 – 1840 La RECHERCHE travelled far and wide in the High North. The corvette visited Northern Norway, the Faroe Islands, Svalbard, the White Sea and the Kola Peninsula, and people from the expedition made several trips through Scandinavia and Russia.
The scientific leader of the expedition was the French surgeon and naturalist Joseph Paul Gaimard (1796-1858). Gaimard had participated in naval expeditions before the “Recherche expedition,” and in 1835 he visited Iceland. The next year he returned to Iceland as the leader of a scientific expedition, sponsored by the French government, and performed scientific studies in Iceland and Greenland. The results of these studies were published in “Voyage en Islande et au Groënland,” a work of nine volumes, one of them with geographical illustrations. This was the first “La Recherche Expedition.”
The scientific results from the second “La Recherche Expedition” were published in “Atlas Pittoresque” in the period 1842 – 1855 with the title: “Voyages de la Commission scientifique de Nord: en Scandinavie en Laponie, au Spitzberg et aux Feroe, pendant les années 1838, 1839 et 1849, sur la corvette La RECHERCHE.” (The Scientific Committee’s Expedition to the North; In Scandinavia, Lapland, Spitzberg and the Faroe Islands in the years 1838, 1839 and 1849 onboard the corvette La RECHERCHE’) The work consisted of 26 volumes with the text and 5 volumes with illustrations and maps.
The scientific research was extensive, and covered – in accordance with the spirit of the time – a series of natural scientific and cultural historical subjects. But the main reason that we still remember the expedition today is the extensive amount of artwork which was produced during the trip to the North. In those days, artists always participated in this kind of expeditions. Their task was to document scientific discoveries, to draw maps and describe the surrounding environments.
The second “La Recherche Expedition” was no exception from this tradition. The artists onboard La RECHERCHE were Auguste Mayer (1805-1890), who also participated in the first Recherche expedition to Iceland and Greenland; Charles Giraud (1819-1892); Barthélemy Lauvergne (1805-1871) and Francois Auguste Biard (1799-1882). Biard was not an official member of the expedition and therefore only got one of his pictures in “Atlas Pittoresque”.
During the entire trip and travels through Scandinavia, the artists drew and painted the strange envirionments they visited. Most of these pictures were later converted into lithograps and published in “Atlas Pittoresque”.
The pictures are valuable contributions to the Nordic cultural history, especially the pictorial descriptions from the Norwegian northwest coast, Lapland, Svalbard and the Faroe Islands. Also Mayer’s pictures from Iceland and Greenland, from the first “Recherche Expedition”, are cultural historical treasures, and three of these pictures were published as stamps from the Iceland Post some years ago.
The pictures, chosen for the Faroese homage to the La RECHERCHE artists were made by Barthélemy Lauvergne. The Faroese Post has chosen two motifs from this Faroe series. The first stamp depicts the corvette La RECHERCHE with the island of Nólsoy in the background. The second stamp depicts the majestic mountain Skaelingsfjall. One of the lithographs (Skaelingsfjall) was made by Sabatier, based on an original drawing by Lauvergne, while the other one is made by Lauvergne himself.
Built as a transport at the Navel yard at Cherbourg for the French Navy.
26 January 1833 laid down.
02 December 1834 launched under the name La POURVOYEUSE one of the Chevrette class.
Tonnage 380 tons (bm), dim. 31.57 x 8.48 x 4.84m.
Armament 2 – 4cm and 10 – 12pdr. carronades guns.
3 Mast vessel, sail area about 944m².
Crew 60.
16 January 1835 renamed in La RECHERCHE
23 March 1835 completed.
She was built first as a large transport ship, (most probably for the transport of horses) but later reclassified as corvette second class.
26 April 1835 sailed from Cherbourg bound for Iceland to search for the Frenchman and geographer Jules Poret de Blosseville, which was lost in the north in 1833, when he vanished with his brig La LILLOISE and 80 men in the waters of the Arctic.
02 November 1835 sailed from Cherbourg for Brest.
27 December 1835 sailed from Brest for Senegal, Guyana and Martinique, and returned 26 March 1836 at Cherbourg?
15 December 1836 took hydrographical surveys in the waters of Cayenne and the Antilles.
28 February 1837 returned at Brest.
Between 1838 and 1840 used for polar voyages, made in that time also a voyage to Martinique from 24 November 1838 till 25 February 1839.
24 April to 14 September 1841 used along the coast of Iceland.
1845 Refitted in Brest again in a sailing transport with an armament of 2 or 4 guns, and crew reduced to 39 men.
16 January 1848 commissioned as transport in Brest.
25 October 1846 sailed from Brest for Senegal to be based there.
Early 1850 stationed at Gabon.
02 June 1850 sailed from Gabon bound for France, arrived Brest 27 July 1850.
24 August 1850 decommissioned.
1854 Made an other voyage to Iceland before she departed for Africa.
01 March 1860 decommissioned at Gabon.
22 May 1860 at Gorée.
09 June 1860 sailed from Gorée towards Gabon.
24 December 1861 arrived at Gabon, coming from the Ivory Coast.
10 August 1862 arrived again in Gabon.
23 December 1862 decommissioned in Gabon.
11 April 1863 stricken from the navy list.
1864 till 1867 used as a floating hulk store ship.
11 April 1863 all usable parts removed in Gabon.
1868 Scrapped.
Source: Mr. Jean-Lous Araignon http://dossiersmarine.free.fr/fs_c_c6.html