Peaks & Glaciers 2020 JOHN MITCHELL FINE PAINTINGS EST 1931 Anneler 18 Bennallack Hart 12 Blaschke 41 Burger 17, 38 Peaks & Calame 4, 22, 30, 42 ® Callow 48 Cardinaux 20 Compton 13, 43 Glaciers Contencin 8, 10, 19, 40, 47 Fourcy 16, 28, 34, 46 Kameke 37 2020 Kessler 32 Hart Dyke 33 La Cour 23 Lilie 44 Loppé 6 Mønsted 25 Pennell 11 Rothaug 31 Redmond 48 Schrader 29 Steffan 24, 36 All paintings and drawings are for sale unless otherwise stated and are available for viewing from Monday to Friday by prior appointment at: John Mitchell Fine Paintings 17 Avery Row Brook Street London W1K 4BF Catalogue compiled by William Mitchell [email protected] 020 7493 7567 www.johnmitchell.net 2 In assembling the pictures for this year’s Peaks & Glaciers catalogue, I have endeavoured, FIG 1 The Mer de Glace and the Grand 3 Charmoz, Chamonix. September 2020, again, to present as wide a selection of paintings as possible in terms of period and subject photograph by William Mitchell and Gabriel matter. Next year, in 2021, it will be our firm’s ninetieth in business and our twentieth annual Loppé, The Mer de Glace and the Grand Charmoz, Peaks & Glaciers exhibition. oil on canvas, 250 x 350cm, dated 1874 There is neither the space nor the need in this foreword to reflect on how much the art business has transformed over the decades but, to summarize, it is fair to state that in the last twenty years the changes wrought in the Alps have kept pace with those in this trade. Of course, not all change is necessarily progress or desirable, but with regards to the Alps, the inescapable fact remains that through global warming things are different. (see Fig 1) When revising and proofreading the captions that accompany the enclosed pictures, it has made me realize how many mountain scenes by Contencin, Fourcy, Calame, Loppé and Compton, to name but a few, have now passed through our firm. Inevitably, the briefest of biographical details about the artists bear repeating but every effort is made to locate and identify the specific view in each picture and to accompany it with some relevant detail. As rewarding as it is therefore to research the paintings in Peaks & Glaciers, it involves a fair amount of rummaging through maps and images online but, thanks largely to photos posted by mobile phones over the last several years, the evidence of just how severely the glaciers and snow caps have shrunk is all too clear. And so it is that each year these paintings acquire more than just a veneer of heritage as many of them, especially those of the high-altitude terrain, have unwittingly become historic documents. An exemplary case in point is ET Compton’s Lyskamm of 1902 on pages 13-15. Warmer winters and summers aside, the purpose and the format of the exhibition remain the same: to celebrate the beauty and diversity of the Alps through art. As in most years, suitable deference is reserved for the work of the late Romantics, especially Alexandre Calame who is represented by four pictures, three of them coming from the distinguished Asbjorn Lunde Collection in New York. Another picture worth highlighting and one that helps quash the inconsistent argument that Without Calame’s innovation in this genre of landscape painting, it would be hard to imagine ‘traditional’ pictures, or so we are told, are difficult to sell, is the beautiful view of Lake Geneva how the successive generation of Alpine painters could have flourished. His French disciple, by Peder Mønsted (pages 25-27). A newcomer to Peaks & Glaciers, Mønsted was nevertheless Gabriel Loppé, distilled Calame’s ideas into his own practice of painting en plein air and thereby one of the most prolific painters of his time. Even though his quay-side scene at Ouchy is gave rise to the next generation of peintres-alpinistes. Compton’s contribution as a chronicler dated 1887, it has an almost timeless quality. Its exciting and masterful composition seems of many hundreds of different peaks, glaciers and valleys is equally as important and yet it is as relevant and evocative of this huge lake today as it must have been then and, yet, Mønsted surprising how different he was from Loppé in character and painting style. There still seems is considered an academic painter par excellence. That the picture was included in the 1991 to be no explanation for it but their paths hardly crossed at all through the latter half of the exhibition Svizerra Meravigliosa- Vedute di artisti stranieri 1770-1914 (Wonderful Switzerland: nineteenth century. views of foreign artists) is a testament to its quality. However, these painters do not narrate the whole story and even a cursory glance through An art dealer’s métier is not to judge but to make known, and for the reasons given above, it this Peaks & Glaciers catalogue will show that, in terms of palette and style rather than specific can be argued that all the mountain landscapes in Peaks & Glaciers complement each other dating, there are far more ‘modern’ pictures available than in previous years. and are worthy of inclusion. With this in mind, I hope this year’s selections will be appreciated for their individual merits, first and foremost. With their bold colouring and symmetry, the pictures by the Zürich-based lithographers such as Willy Burger (pages 17, 38-39), Karl Anneler (page 18), and Emil Cardinaux (pages 20-21), WJ Mitchell have a distinct visual impact but, nonetheless, retain their charm. More importantly, they January 2020 remain as pictorial homages to the Alps and in this aspect differ little from the paintings by the nineteenth-century painters. Please note that there are more paintings, drawings and photographs for sale that are not included in this catalogue but can be accessed via our website under the section Alpine which is sub-divided into two sections: paintings and photographs. 4 Alexandre Calame (1810-1864) 5 Mountain torrent with the Steinlauihorn above Handeck, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland oil on canvas 11 x 14¾in (28 x 37.5cm) signed, circa 1850 PROVENANCE Asbjorn R. Lunde Collection, New York. EXHIBITED Alpine Views: Alexandre Calame and the Swiss Landscape, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA. October 8-December 31 2006. pl. 8 Den Ville Natur Sveitsisk og Norsk Romantikk, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromso and Bergen Kunstmuseum, Bergen, Norway, September 29, 2007 – August 31, 2008, p.80, no. 10 Forest, Rocks, Torrents: Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes from the Lunde Collection, The National Gallery, London. June 22-September 18 2011, no. 35 A+ This modestly sized canvas is prime Calame and demonstrates just what a master painter he was in capturing his country’s beautiful scenery. Using a series of v-shaped compositional planes with sharp shadows, Calame succeeded in creating an amazing sense of depth and drama in this mountainscape. The stand of fir trees beside the rushing torrent separates the chasm from the far-off peak and, equally, points to Calame’s long-lasting assimilation of Jacob Ruisdael’s landscapes. It is noteworthy that Calame made the giant boulders in the foreground a primary feature in the picture. Whereas many of his contemporaries and followers struggled to recreate rocks faithfully, including Gabriel Loppé, Calame excelled at painting them. His closest rival in this aspect was E.T.Compton, born a generation on. Many of Calame’s finest paintings derive from the environs of Handeck in the eastern Bernese Oberland. With its steep valleys, waterfalls and views of lofty mountain ridges and tops, the region offered nearly all the motifs that recurred in his compositions. 6 Gabriel Loppé (1825-1913) 7 Crevasses on the Glacier du Géant, Chamonix, France oil on canvas 16 x 12in (40.5 x 30.5cm) signed and dated 1876 A+ The mid-1870s were some of Loppé’s busiest years. When writing about his climbing expeditions, it was He divided his time between London in the winter where clear that Loppé had a prodigious memory for places. he planned his exhibitions and from June to September In his emotive words, he referred to scenes that offered he would install himself and his family in Chamonix. a ‘reality that was more beautiful than in our wildest Weather permitting, he either painted or climbed-or dreams’ and reality was just what he strived for. Apart both- every day. from his skill at conveying atmosphere, the other remarkable aspect of Loppé’s haute montagne paintings On March 3rd 1876, the year that Crevasses on the is their topographical accuracy. Given how many of his Glacier du Géant was painted, Loppé had made the pictures were made directly from nature without ever second known winter ascent of Mont Blanc having been resorting to artistic licence, whether on a summit or thwarted by the cold and wind back in January. One can beside a crevasse, Loppé never once exaggerated nor only imagine how different the conditions were a few diminished any of his compositions to create a more months later as he sat in front of this crevasse working ‘successful’ painting. He was often challenged on that away on his three-legged, folding stool with his paint very point by visitors to his exhibitions but always box on his knees. This recent acquisition is a pristine politely but firmly rebutted the suggestion with accurate example of how Loppé combined his love of painting and compelling evidence. When Loppé exhibited three on the spot – from the motif- with his enthusiasm for drawings and two oil studies at Dijon’s Beaux-arts the inner workings of glaciers.