A view of the Swiss mountains of the Valais

This study was executed during one of Calame's expeditions in the Valais, during which he would assemble a corpus of studies to be re-used back in his studio in Geneva. On 16 July 1838 Calame wrote from Zermatt to his wife that he was executing many such studies of the snowy peaks 'Nous avons depuis hier mercredi un temps magnifique, et tu supposes bien que j'en profite; demain soir j'aurais trois études achevées dont deux très soignées représentant ces cimes neigées...', V. Hanker, Alexandre Calame, vie et oeuvre, Fribourg and Paris, 1987, p. 39. As they were his primary material, Calame attached great importance to these studies and seldom parted with them, E. Rambert, Alexandre Calame, sa vie et son oeuvre d'après les sources originales, Paris, 1884, p. 560.
Calame returned to the Valais in July 1840 on his way to Italy. It was probably both on that trip and on the expedition of 1838 that Calame gathered the studies that he re-used in 1844 for his most famous picture Le Mont Rose, now in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Neufchâtel.