Grossglockner Mountain

This watercolour offers an insight into the ways artists worked in the 19th century. It was customary at the time for artists to experience nature in the mountains at first hand. Often undertaking strenuous hiking tours, they would make sketches of their impressions, to be used as material for executing paintings in the studio. Melling illustrates sketching from nature with three small staffage figures in the meadow on the far right of the foreground: one lying in the grass, the second pointing at the panorama and holding a parasol over the third, who is sketching the imposing snowcovered peaks.
Melling’s picture support is a sheet of watermarked paper; lily and coat of arms with the name C & I Honig refer to the Dutch paper mill of Cornelis & Jan Honig. Between 1748 and 1846, several versions of the watermark, including the trade name C & I Honig were in circulation.

DUCKE Astrid: Berg/Mountain, in: DUCKE Astrid, HABERSATTER Thomas (Hrsg./Edited): Stadt ∙ Land ∙ Berg. Salzburg und seine Umgebung. Town ∙ Landscape ∙ Mountain. Salzburg and surroundings. Residenzgalerie Salzburg. Salzburg 2022, S./p. 160-161