by-nc

Mer de Glace, Chamonix

Maker

(artist)
1819-1900

Title

Mer de Glace, Chamonix

Date of Production

(circa?) 1844 - 1849

Medium

graphite and watercolour on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 25.1 cm
Width: 35 cm

Accession Number

D.2001.XX.2

Mode of Acquisition

Kathleen Jonas, gift, 2001 (18 January)

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords




Label Text

The second largest glacier in the Alps, the Mer de Glace excited the imagination of numerous nineteenth-century artists and writers. Observing the glacier in close proximity, Ruskin evokes the roughness of the terrain, contrasting the jagged peaks of ice and gaping blue crevasses with the rocky brown slopes and boulders. The view accords with contemporary notions of the Sublime, experienced as feelings of awe and fear. Yet at the same time the artist reveals a sound knowledge of mountain structure – the ideal combination of imagination and truth strongly advocated by Ruskin.

Provenance

Kathleen Jonas; Jonas Gift 2001

Exhibition History

Return to Darkness, Musée Rath, Geneva, 02/12/2016-19/03/2017

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/02/2011-15/05/2011

Art at the Rockface, Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, 23/09/2006-07/01/2007 ...More

Art at the Rockface, Norwich Castle Museum, 22/05/2006-03/09/2006 ...Less

Literature

Musée Rath, Geneva, 2 December 2016 - 19 March 2017, Le Retour des Tenebres: L'imaginaire Gothique depuis Frankenstein, Musumeci 2016
ill. on p. 115

Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings & Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
no. 20
ill. on p. 91

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
cat. no. 20
ill. on p. 91

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower right corner, graphite, described: "Mer de Glace / nr. the Petits Ponts". Verso: centre, graphite: "mount".

Collector's mark: none.

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