Numbered 684 on the verso and dated circa 1870, this carbon print by Adolphe Braun (1812–1877) shows a man sketching in Mürren, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.

Adolphe Braun began experimenting with a camera in 1851 and by 1857 had established a fine art publishing firm. Such was its output and commercial success that Braun et Cie. would ultimately eclipse the remarkable contribution that its founder had made to the emerging photographic scene of the mid-nineteenth century. It was only in the mid-1960s that Braun's photographs and talents as a major innovator in the medium came to be appreciated.

This particular composition, showing an artist at work within the landscape, is a rarer, more narrative subject within Braun's largely topographical Alpine output. Collectors of early mountain photography and images documenting the practice of plein-air sketching in the Alps will find this a distinctive addition to Braun's better-known pure landscape views.