A superb small-scale oil by Alexandre Calame (1810–1864), the leading Swiss landscape painter of his generation, showing a mountain torrent with the Steinlauihorn above Handeck in the eastern Berner Oberland. Exhibited at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, the National Gallery, London, and in Norway, the painting has a distinguished modern exhibition history as part of the celebrated Asbjørn R. Lunde Collection.

Calame's handling of rock and torrent, informed by his deep study of Jacob van Ruisdael, was widely considered unmatched among his contemporaries and followers, including his own most direct rival in this respect, Edward Theodore Compton.

This small canvas is prime Calame and demonstrates just what a master painter he was in capturing his country's beautiful scenery. Using a series of v-shaped compositional planes with sharp shadows, Calame succeeded in creating an amazing sense of depth and drama in this mountainscape. The stand of fir trees beside the rushing torrent separates the chasm from the far-off peak and points to Calame's long-lasting assimilation of the Dutch Master, Jacob Ruisdael's landscapes. Many of Calame's finest paintings derive from the environs of Handeck in the eastern Berner Oberland, whose steep valleys, waterfalls and lofty ridges offered nearly all the motifs that recurred in his compositions.