Lot Essay
The artist visited Switzerland in the company of his son Carle and his patron Girardot de Marigny between 12 June and 12 August 1778. The Rhine Falls at Lauffenbourg, still today one of the most popular tourist sights in Switzerland, held a particular fascination for the traveller of the age of romanticism. Helen Maria Williams recorded her impressions in A Tour of Switzerland, published in 1798 (quoted by
Briganti, op. cit., pp.263-4): ' ... We passed hastily through Zuric, in our way to Schaffhausen, for although I had been assured that the cataract of the Rhine was 'but a fall of water', it had excited so tormenting a curiosity, that I found I should be incapable of seeing any thing else with pleasure or advantage, till I had once gazed upon that object ... My heart swelled with expectation - our path, as if formed to give the scene its full effect, concealed for some time the river from our view; till we reached a wooden balcony, projecting on the edge of the water, and whence, just sheltered from the torrent, it bursts in all its overwhelming wonders on the astonished sight. That stupendous cataract, rushing with wild impetuousity over those broken, unequal rocks, lifting up their sharp points amidst its sea of foam, disturb its headlong course, multiply its falls, and make the afflicted waters roar - that cadence of tumultous sound, which had never till now struck upon my ear - those long feathery surges, giving the element a new aspect - that spray rising into clouds of vapour, and reflecting the prismatic colours, while it disperses itself over the hills - never, never can I forget the sensations of that moment ! when with a sort of annihilation of self, with every past impression erased from my memory, I felt as if my heart were bursting with emotions too strong to be sustained. - Oh, majestic torrent ! which hast conveyed a new image of nature to my soul ...
We crossed the river, below the fall, in a boat, and had leisure to observe the surrounding scenery. The cataract, however, had for me a sort of fascinating power, which, if I withdrew my eyes for a moment, again fastened them on its impetuous waters. In the background of the torrent a bare mountain lifts its head encircled with its blue vapours; on the right rises a steep cliff of an enormous height, covered with wood, and upon its summit stands the castle of Lauffen, with its frowning towers, and encircled with its crannied wall; on the left human industry has seized upon a slender thread of this mighty torrent in its fall, and made it subservient to the purposes of commerce. Founderies, mills, and wheels are erected on the edge of the river, and a portion of the vast bason into which the cataract falls is confined by a dyke, which preserves the warehouses and the neighbouring huts from its inundations. Sheltered within this little nook, and accustomed to the neighbourhood of the torrent, the boatman unloads his merchandize, and the artisan pursues his toil, regardless of the falling river, and inattentive to those thundering sounds which seem calculated to suspend all human activity in solemn and awful astonishment; while the imagnation of the spectator is struck with the comparative littleness of fleeting man, busy with his trivial occupations, contrasted with the view of nature in all her vast, eternal, uncontrolable grandeur'.
The Duke of Cervinara, who sold the present picture in 1942, owned a superb collection of French eighteenth century paintings including works by Fragonard, Boucher, Greuze, Robert, Lancret, Schall and Boilly, bequeathed to the Italian state in 1960 and now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome
Briganti, op. cit., pp.263-4): ' ... We passed hastily through Zuric, in our way to Schaffhausen, for although I had been assured that the cataract of the Rhine was 'but a fall of water', it had excited so tormenting a curiosity, that I found I should be incapable of seeing any thing else with pleasure or advantage, till I had once gazed upon that object ... My heart swelled with expectation - our path, as if formed to give the scene its full effect, concealed for some time the river from our view; till we reached a wooden balcony, projecting on the edge of the water, and whence, just sheltered from the torrent, it bursts in all its overwhelming wonders on the astonished sight. That stupendous cataract, rushing with wild impetuousity over those broken, unequal rocks, lifting up their sharp points amidst its sea of foam, disturb its headlong course, multiply its falls, and make the afflicted waters roar - that cadence of tumultous sound, which had never till now struck upon my ear - those long feathery surges, giving the element a new aspect - that spray rising into clouds of vapour, and reflecting the prismatic colours, while it disperses itself over the hills - never, never can I forget the sensations of that moment ! when with a sort of annihilation of self, with every past impression erased from my memory, I felt as if my heart were bursting with emotions too strong to be sustained. - Oh, majestic torrent ! which hast conveyed a new image of nature to my soul ...
We crossed the river, below the fall, in a boat, and had leisure to observe the surrounding scenery. The cataract, however, had for me a sort of fascinating power, which, if I withdrew my eyes for a moment, again fastened them on its impetuous waters. In the background of the torrent a bare mountain lifts its head encircled with its blue vapours; on the right rises a steep cliff of an enormous height, covered with wood, and upon its summit stands the castle of Lauffen, with its frowning towers, and encircled with its crannied wall; on the left human industry has seized upon a slender thread of this mighty torrent in its fall, and made it subservient to the purposes of commerce. Founderies, mills, and wheels are erected on the edge of the river, and a portion of the vast bason into which the cataract falls is confined by a dyke, which preserves the warehouses and the neighbouring huts from its inundations. Sheltered within this little nook, and accustomed to the neighbourhood of the torrent, the boatman unloads his merchandize, and the artisan pursues his toil, regardless of the falling river, and inattentive to those thundering sounds which seem calculated to suspend all human activity in solemn and awful astonishment; while the imagnation of the spectator is struck with the comparative littleness of fleeting man, busy with his trivial occupations, contrasted with the view of nature in all her vast, eternal, uncontrolable grandeur'.
The Duke of Cervinara, who sold the present picture in 1942, owned a superb collection of French eighteenth century paintings including works by Fragonard, Boucher, Greuze, Robert, Lancret, Schall and Boilly, bequeathed to the Italian state in 1960 and now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome