FRANCIS DANBY A.R.A. (COUNTY WEXFORD 1793-1861 EXMOUTH)

From the shoreline of Lake Zurich Danby's beautifully atmospheric painting looks East to the wooden bridge that crosses from Rapperswil, whose buildings are seen to the far right, over to the island of Hurden. This delicately executed bridge has existed in various forms since circa 1500 BC, and is part of the Camino de Santiago route through Switzerland, known locally as the Jakobsweg. Here a handful of pilgrims are shown walking over, their immediate destination being the next point on the route, the Abbey of Einsiedeln, a Benedictine Monastry founded in 934 by the hermit Saint Meinrad.

Danby had left London and moved to the Continent in 1829 following his failure to be nominated as a Royal Academician, in which comptition he was beaten by Constable, and the collapse of his marriage. In 1831 he took up lodgings with his mistress and children in Rapperswil, where he stayed for a year until mounting debts forced him to move on. A letter he wrote to his friend G.F. Robson expresses how he felt about the Swiss landscape 'Switzerland (at least what I have seen) is not so wild, but extremely beautiful, calm fine weather suits it best' (F. Danby to G.F. Robson, 23 March 1832, from Rapperswil: letter in the Henry Bicknell album Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). This sense of calm pervades Danby's evocation of early morning light on the still waters of the lake in the present painting. Given the wealth of detail provided, it is likely that he was working from a sketch of the lake view that had so affected him, as the painting was first exhibited nine years after Danby's return to London.