CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET | Mountainous river landscape with two fishermen casting a net, and a man with his horse-drawn cart travelling along a sandy path

As a pure Alpine scene, this is a very rare work within Vernet's œuvre. In 1778 Vernet spent six weeks in the Swiss Alps with his son Carle, at the invitation of his most important patron, Jean Girardot de Marigny. The trip itself is testament to the close relationship between the artist and the financier, who formed an important collection of contemporary French art. This mountainous landscape with rapids would have been inspired by Vernet's trip of two years prior, as well as the five goauches he purchased in 1780 from the Swiss artist Caspar Wolf (1735-98), known for his dramatic Alpine landscapes. The composition is close to that known from an undated engraving after Vernet depicting rapids and fishermen against a mountain backdrop.¹

1 F. Ingersoll-Smouse, Joseph Vernet, Paris 1922, vol. II, p. 52, cat. no. 1315, reproduced fig. 252.