On the verso a label and the inscription of the Estate: ‘Succession Arthur Calame’, ‘Etude d’Alexandre Calame / retrouvée à l’inventaire / de la succession de son fils Arthur Calame / Genève, le 15 Avril 1922 / No. 165 L. Buscarlet Calame’ Vestiges of the Vente Calame seal

The spreading branches of an ancient olive tree set in a rocky landscape dominate the composition. The work derives much of its impact from the sensitive, highly atmospheric, although detailed handling of the ancient tree with its evergreen foliage and the craggy landcape surrounding it. Like many artists of northern European origin, Calame was fascinated by the effects of southern light. The dramatic play of the sunlight on the surface of the trunk, the branches and the multicoloured rocky outcropping is extremely skilfully modelled. The wave of enthusiasm for plein-air painting that developed in Rome in the early nineteenth century was a clear source of inspiration for the present painting.

Calame began his career as an employee of a banker named Diodati. It was Diodati who enabled him to take up painting. He financed Calame’s studies from 1829 onwards under the landscape painter François Diday. Calame spent free moments colouring Swiss views which he sold to tourists.

He began to exhibit regularly in Geneva, Berlin and Leipzig in 1835 and from 1839 onwards was a regular contributor to the Paris Salon. This brought him considerable public recognition, particularly in France and Germany. Constantly searching for new motifs, he travelled widely in France, Germany and Holland. He visited Rome and Naples in 1844, where he first experienced the phenomenon of Italian light. His health began to fail in 1855 and this compelled him to restrict his travels to regions north of the Alps.

In the 1840s, Calame was ranked as one of Switzerland’s best landscape painters in the company of such names as François Diday, Charles-Louis Guigon and Wolfgang-Adam Töpffer.

He received numerous awards during his lifetime but after his death in 1864, recognition of his work experienced something of a decline. However, today Calame is regarded as one of the major representatives of the Swiss Romantic heroic tradition in landscape and alpine painting.

The painting was still in the artist’s possession when he died and it was handed down in the family over several generations.