3-011-820 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Sunrise on the Königs See, Berchtesgaden, Bavarian Alps", by W. C. Smith, in the exhibition of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1864. '...the Königs See...is scarcely to be surpassed for grandeur...the view the artist has selected is...looking towards Sanct Bartholomä...[a chapel] to which pilgrimages are made...and which is seen on a tongue of land to the right...The really sublimely-impressive character of the scene is due not merely to the height and magnitude of the surrounding mountains, but to their precipitousness. They fall on all sides in a sheer and sometimes perpendicular descent of 5000ft. and upwards, and then plunge into the fathomless depths of the dark-green lake, so as to have no foreland at the water's edge, and scarcely even a landing-place. The lake is rendered still more sombre and black by the dark fir-forests which clothe the sides of the precipitous hills, and are mirrored in the still lake...Far above...rises the gigantic Waitzmann, with its snow-clad double horner, and trackless clefts. The distant bells of cattle feeding on the alpine meadows are alone heard in this solitude, whose pinnacles and ridges are the peculiar haunt of the chamois. Mr. Smith has...represented this scene in the light of early day'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.