
Thomas Seaman
Specialist, Head of Sale
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£6,000 - £8,000
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Provenance
Gifted by the artist to William Williamson (according to the inscription on the reverse).
The collection of Lord Charles Vere Townshend (1785-1853).
His sale, Christie's, London, 13 May 1854, lot 41 (6 gns. to Right).
W.O. Foster, by 1857.
Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 17 December 2020, lot 180.
Private collection, UK (acquired from the above sale).
Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1849, no. 531.
Manchester, Museum of Ornamental Art, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 5 May - 17 October 1857, no. 578.
Literature
Art Journal, XI, 1849, p. 175, no. 531.
E. Adams, Francis Danby: varieties of poetic landscape, New Haven and London, 1973, no. 198, pp. 182 and 198.
The descriptive power of landscape art cannot be carried further than we find it in this picture
Art Journal, 1849, p. 175.
The present lot reflects the artist's fascination with Switzerland. Danby moved to Switzerland in 1831 after a failed marriage and what he perceived to be rejection by the Royal Academy. He would live by the shores of Lake Geneva for the next decade.
The present lot, painted in 1849, most likely draws from earlier sketches. Danby creates a sense of calm and stillness, with the lake waters and the ethereal alpine lighting. The scene shows pilgrims preparing to embark across Lake Zurich, heading east towards the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, one of Switzerland's most important pilgrimage sites, over to the island of Hurden. The pilgrimage is known in Switzerland locally as the Jakobsweg, a historic route which is evoked with calm and lyricism as the group of pilgrims walking over the bridge to the Abbey. The Abbey of Einsiedeln is a Benedictine Monastery founded by Saint Meinrad in 934. The pilgrimage remains a popular tradition today.