2-982-640 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mont Cervin (or Matterhorn) from above Gumont, Val Tournanche - from a drawing by George Barnard, 1858. The mountain '...is of a pyramidal form, and more than 4000 feet above the bed of ice from which it seems to spring. In the whole chain of the Alps not one object offers so striking an appearance as this remarkable mountain, which lifts itself from an otherwise unbroken line of glacier, which is more than 11,000 English feet above the level of the sea...The following communication is by Mr. George Barnard, to whom we are indebted for the accompanying Illustration. "Surely this Matterhorn is of all mountains the most wonderful and impressive...When I saw [the peak] the veil of gauze-like rain-clouds was just floating away, leaving the craggy pinnacle, tinted with a most ethereal and beautiful rose colour, apparently far above the earth or anything earthly, and, of course, immeasurably beyond any attempt at imitation with our limited means and dull pigments. It was heavenly! What was I to do? I did nothing, but just stood gazing at this astonishing revelation until the sun had set, and thus withdrawn his golden film, and a deadly gray tint had overshadowed, not merely the valley in which I stood, but the highest peak and clouds above".' From "Illustrated London News", 1858