Splendid Mountain Watercolours

[1] Sargent began working in the notebook during a three-week trek with his father at the end of June 1870, after which he spent the rest of the summer with the entire family in the high Alpine village of Mürren, where he continued to fill the book.

However, the young artist, who lacked formal art education, devised other and more sophisticated techniques to render snow, glaciers, ice, and mist.

In search of cool temperatures in the Bernese Highlands after an unusually hot spring in Italy, the family crossed the St. Gotthard Pass in a carriage on June 3, arriving on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Flüelen.

[1] FitzWilliam wrote to his mother on a postcard depicting their chalet boarding house:We are ... more than 5000 feet above the sea, — looking upon the Jungfrau and other snow-covered mountains "thick as blackberries".

The air is delicious, tonic and not too cold ... the walks about Mürren ... amongst pines, rocks, tumbling streams and waterfalls, looking across gorges amongst glaciers and mountains 12,000 feet high eternally covered with snow and ice, from which avalanches roll and thunder daily.

That month FitzWilliam wrote to his mother in America, "John seems to have a strong desire to be an artist ... and we have concluded to gratify him and to keep that in plan in view of his studies.

According to art historian Shelley, the sheets in the sketchbook "reveal careful attention to ... capturing the color and form of the mountains, the expanses of snow, the waterfalls and boulders, the weight and shadows of the clouds.

For example "Frau von Allmen and a companion" shows areas of textured paper left unpainted to highlight reflections in on the objects in the chalet's interior.

[13] They presage his mature style, showing a boldness, "rapid repetition and reworking of lines", techniques such as hatching, all of which combine to develop perspective and build a sense atmosphere.

[13] In 1950 Sargent's sister, Francis Ormond, bequeathed the sketchbook along with another, simply titled "Album 3" (also filled during the same Switzerland trip), to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.