Dr. Lucien Boissonnas, in a letter dated April 1995, writes 'This and the following two landscapes by Wolfgang-Adam Töpffer are unusual in their modern naturalistic pleinairiste approach to landscape and were most probably painted entirely sur le motif. They illustrate a virtually unknown and underestimated aspect of Adam Töpffer's work, the few examples known in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva and in the Oskar Reinhart collection having too frequently been described as odd exceptions in the artist's oeuvre.

'This neutral view of nature is unprecedented in Geneva (and to a lesser degree on the Continent) at a time when the Genevan painters of the next generation like François Diday (1802-1877) and Alexandre Calame (1810-1864) dramatized nature in their sublime dark and stormy landscapes.

'Painted from somewhere above Bex or Ollon in Valais canton, this excellent landscape depicts the entry of the Valais Valley and looks onto the hill of Saint Triphon where one can still see the donjon (18 metres high) belonging to the remains of a 12th-Century castle.'

To be included in Dr. Lucien Boissonnas' forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Töpffer