Landscape, Switzerland

Adolphe Braun pursued several paths to commercial success. A skilled draftsman, Braun nevertheless employed photography as a design aid in his wallpaper and fabric business in the 1850s, making photographic still-lifes of floral arrangements that were admired in his day. He then turned his attention to landscapes, and over the course of the 1860s produced large-scale commercial views as well as thousands of stereographs focusing on fashionable tourist destinations in Germany and Switzerland. (One observer claimed in 1866 that it was virtually impossible to take a step in Switzerland without stumbling upon a shop selling Braun's prints and stereo views.) It is unknown, however, whether this three-part triptych—including two figures repeated in each frame—was intended for tourist consumption. Braun in any case conveys here an Alpine pastorale, replete with a serpentine fence, grassy meadow, and snow-capped peaks.