Alexandre Calame Art

Mid 19th Century oil on canvas view of a Swiss valley and mountainscape by Alexander Calame. The painting is signed bottom left. The canvas is on a fine stretcher with 'keys'. The painting has been in a private collection in the North of France since the early 20th Century. A very beautiful and expert rendition of one of Calame's iconic Swiss mountain views. Atmospheric view of light and shade, a moody sky with the sun just breaking through over a small mountain cottage retreat. Alex Calame was born in Corsier-sur-Vevey, today a part of Vevey, Switzerland. He was the son of a skillful marble worker in Vevey, but because his father lost the family fortune, Calame could not concentrate on art, but rather he was forced to work in a bank from the age of 15. When his father fell from a building and then died, it was up to the young Calame to provide for his mother. In his spare time he began to practice drawing small views of Switzerland. In 1829 he met his patron, the banker Diodati, who made it possible for him to study under landscape painter François Diday. After a few months he decided to devote himself fully to art. In 1835 he began exhibiting his Swiss-Alps and forest paintings in Paris and Berlin. He became well known, especially in Germany. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. In 1842 he went to Paris and displayed his works Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, the Brienzersee, the Monte Rosa and Mont Cervin. He taught in Geneva, where Adolf Mosengel was one of his pupils as were some of the children of the Russian Imperial family of Nicholas I. Alexandre Calame...