The Miraculous Draft of Fishes (Witz)

The Miraculous Draft of Fishes is a 1444 oil on wood panel painting by the Swabian artist Konrad Witz, on view in the Museum of Art and History (Musée d'Art et d'Histoire) in Geneva, Switzerland.

In this painting Witz takes the revolutionary step of moving the scene from the biblical Sea of Galilee to his local area, around Lake Geneva.

[2] With this move, Witz was able to base his rendering of the far landscape on his own observation of actual topographical features rather than rely on imaginative interpretation as earlier artists did.

He further brought the landscape to the fore of his work; here the range is not simply a footnote seen through a window or detail visible beyond a crucifixion scene.

The painting is renowned for its naturalistic representation of the Graian Alps and the snow-capped peaks of Mont Blanc and Le Môle seen in the distance.