Oil painting, 'Study from Nature at Bex', François Diday, Swiss school, ca. 1835-1868

A valley between two summits with a distant house in the centre and trees on each side.

Bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend

Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, listed in the 1868 post-mortem register of the contents of his villa in Lausanne (V&A R/F MA/1/T1181) as 'Oil on Canvas. Study from nature at Bex. By F. Diday. Signed. Swiss. Present century'; bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, 1868.

Historical significance: Considered the leading member of the Swiss mountain landscapists, Diday's aesthetic is not far from that of the Romantic movement and its use of nature as a mirror of the human and divine mind. The small house in the centre at mid-distance, perched on the top of a headland, is representative of such conception of an overwhelming and omnipotent nature against human fragility.
This painting was bequeathed by the Rev. Townshend who owned a large collection of 19th-century landscape paintings. It is not unlikely that Townshend, who resided part of the year in Lausanne, acquired this painting directly from the artist.

The term 'Biedermeier' refers to bourgeois life and art in Germanic Europe, an extensive area embracing such cities as Copenhagen, Berlin, Vienna and Prague, from 1815 (the Congress of Vienna) to the revolutions of 1848. Biedermeier painters were ideologically opposed to academic and religious painting and favoured such subject matter as portraits, landscapes and genre scenes, with still-lifes, especially of flowers. They share a similar technique in the use of separate, clear tones and a high degree of finish, reminiscent of Neo-Classicism while they tend to convey a greater sentimentality. By the 1880s, the influence of this artistic movement was on the wane and was even used pejoratively to characterize the reactionary bourgeois elements in society, which remained quite indifferent to social problems and cultivated a sense of order and sobriety, especially in the private sphere and the domestic realm.

François Diday (1802-1877) was born in Geneva where he trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts before studying with Antoine-Jean Gros in Paris in 1830. He won official recognition in 1840 when Louis-Philippe bought one of his paintings (now destroyed) and was awarded the Légion d’honneur two years later. Diday was also a prolific draughtsman and engraver.

This painting is a fine example of Diday’s output. He essentially executed views of imposing mountains, in particular the Alps, characterised by a high degree of finish and atmospheric effects. The present composition was probably made in his studio thanks to sketches executed after nature (here at Bex, in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland). Diday is considered together with his pupil Alexandre Calame ((1810-1864) to be the leading member of the Swiss mountainous landscapists.

1582-1869