Description:

monogrammed, inscribed, and dated (lower right): TF Wengener Alp 24 July 1835
oil on paper mounted on plate
170 x 310 mm

Provenance:

Provenance:
Private collection, Norway

Literature

S. Willoch, 1986, Thomas Fearnley 1802-1842, exhib. cat., Modum. Stiftelsen Modum Blaafarveværk, p. 12

Exhibitions

Modum, Stiftelsen Modums Blaafarveværk, Thomas Fearnley, 1802-1842, 1986

Note:

Having spent nearly three years in Italy, Thomas Fearnley set out to Paris from Rome in the Summer of 1835. On his route, he spent three months in the Swiss Alps in order to sketch the Grindelwald glaciers. He also made studies in the Alpine valleys around Brunnen, Meiringen, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen and Brienz. According to Sigurd Willoch, Fearnley’s first biographer, "the meeting with the Alps was like a cooling bath after the years in Italy. It is as if new powers were called forth in Fearnley during the three months he travelled in the summer of 1835 between the mountains at Grindelwald and Wengen. The studies from there, and not least a number of excellent drawings, would provide the basis for some of his most significant paintings". He considered Fearnley’s studies during this passage of Switzerland to be among the highlights of his entire oeuvre. After the hectic life of Rome and Southern Italy, the Alps must have made a striking contrast.