Gabriel Loppé

A superb plein-air study for a larger painting now in a private collection in England, this oil sketch is both topographically sound and compelling in the way in which Loppé rendered a crisp winter’s day. With no recent snowfall it appears as if the Gsteig valley has been under a spell of high- pressure weather. Looking up from the hamlet of Feutersoey, to the south of Gstaad, the peaks from left to right are the Arpelistock above the Sanetsch Pass, the Sanetschhorn and the Mittaghorn. The mountain to the far right of the chain with a distinctive spur at its summit is the Schlauchhorn.

Despite their inaccessibility at that time of year, the peace and beauty of the sparsely populated Bernese Oberland valleys appealed to Loppé and hardly a winter passed over the next twenty years when he did not plan a painting trip there. Nonetheless, Loppé’s oil studies and finished paintings from this region remain hard to source.