Loppé first climbed up to La Jonction in July 1852, when taking his first wife, Marguerite Bachet as far as the Grands Mulets hut in the first year of their marriage. A decade later, he spent nine days up at the hut and, by then, aside from the hut’s warden and a core group of Chamonix’s more tenacious guides, Loppé had become more than just a regular visitor over the preceding summers. Early photographs by the likes of Adolphe Braun show the painter at work on the cabin’s rudimentary terrace or perched on the surrounding rocks. With his parasol and easel in place, Loppé looks completely at ease as if he had momentarily stepped out of his own chalet. Working in both oils and pencil, Loppé sketched whenever the weather cooperated, producing a flow of work which was subsequently carried back down to Chamonix.

Nearly forty years later, then in his late sixties, Loppé still undertook the round trip to the Grands Mulets Hut which consists of a long and steep path that winds up through the larch forest on the Montagne de la Côte, followed by a long glacier traverse and ascent. Conducted at a vigorous pace, Loppé’s regular excursions to La Jonction (2589 metres) where the Bossons and Taconnaz glaciers meet and on to the Grands Mulets Hut (3051 metres) involved several hours of walking and climbing. This route was the original way to the summit of Mont Blanc and even if it remains one of the most popular ‘endurance’ walks in Chamonix, the view from up there is spectacular.

Beyond the fearsome, looming crevasse in this upright composition, the Grands Mulets rocks, home to the réfuge today, and, behind it, the Rocher Pitschner dominate the middle distance. Mont Blanc’s Dôme de Gouter scarcely comes into view on the far right, behind Loppé’s masterful rendering of swirling snow and cloud. The painter was known to have studied early monochromatic photographs covering all kinds of seracs and fissures in the glaciers, but the pigments he used to depict ice and snow of varying ages were unique. The requisite formula of blues, greens and white in a ‘Loppé crevasse’ were his long-held secret. The three footsteps in the bottom left of the painting subtly suggest the artist’s presence, perched with his easel above La Jonction, returning to a favourite subject that few people alive at the time knew better than himself.

- William Mitchell, Peaks & Glaciers 2018