(Vienna 1793-1875)
A view of the Lauterbrunnental (Lauterbrunnen Valley) in Switzerland, titled "Das Lauterbrunnenthal mit dem Schleierfall" on the reverse, signed Tho. Ender, watercolour on paper, 38 x 54 cm, mounted, framed (Hu)

Listed in:
Walter Koschatzky, Thomas Ender, Graz 1982, S 205.

Exhibited:
"Die Künstlerfamilie Ender", Otto Kallir, Neue Galerie Vienna, Vienna 1938.

We are grateful to Dr. Maria Luise Sternath, Vienna for the scientific support.

Thomas Ender belongs to the most significant representatives of Austrian landscape painting in the 19th century. His watercolours which were commissioned by Archduke Johann between 1829 und 1847, are also of great historical significance. „His works are testimonials and contemporary witnesses and the first and only reliable depictions of nature and settlement areas in the Alpine mountain region before the beginning of the great revolutions, which shaped the late 19th century. The landscape painters of this time and their works also paved the way for Alpinism which developed quickly. With their work the artists stimulated early touristic ambitions and activities.

Thomas Ender greatly contributed to it.“ Even though the revolution of 1848 terminated the „Kammermalerprojekt“, Ender continued to travel to the Tyrol, to Hungary, Transylvania, Italy and Switzerland and tirelessly provided Archduke Johann with watercolours until the 1850s. (From: Exh. cat. Albertina, Von der Schönheit der Natur, Die Kammermaler Erzherzog Johanns, Vienna 2015, pp. 33 and 246.)

Lauterbrunnental is a valley in the Bernese Oberland in the Swiss Alps. Whether the designation "Lauterbrunnen" refers to the clear and numerous springs and crooks is not documented. Nowadays the valley is also called the „valley of 72 waterfalls“. In the monograph on the „Lauterbrunnen valley“ of the late 18th century (Johannes Rudolf Nötinger, Raritätenkasten von Lauterbrunnen, 1783) the valley is described splendidly as the one „with the all around cliffed walls trimmed at great height“, hich fits perfectly to the impression provided by the present watercolour. Furthermore, one can read: “In der ganzen Schweiz, in ganz Europa, ja vielleicht auf der ganzen weiten Oberfläche unseres Erdballs findet sich wohl keine Landschaft, auf welcher in einem so kleinen Bezirke (sic.) von etwelch (sic.) Meilen so viele abwechselnde und verschiedene Naturseltenheiten beisammen anzutreffen, als in der kleinen Bernerischen Oberländischen Thalschaft (sic.) Lauterbrunnen, denn da sieht man ein von hohen Felsmauern eingeschlossenes, zwar enges aber an Land und Leuten fruchtbares Thal (sic.), das mit einem fischreichen Fluß (sic.) in verschiedenen Krümmungen durchschlängelt wird; … Flüsse, Bäche, Brunnquellen die ihr kristallhelles Wasser hervorrieseln und sich schäumend und staubend in allerhand reizenden Vorstellungen und ergözenden (sic.) Naturspielen zu beiden Seiten der Thalschaft (sic.) von einer hohen Felsenwand auf die anderen herabstürzen; … daß (sic.) die Thalschaft (sic.) Lauterbrunnen mit nichts passenderem, als einem Raritätenkasten oder gar mit einem Naturalienkabinet (sic.) verglichen werden kan (sic.).“ (B. Hagerty) (In all of Switzerland, in all of Europe, even on all of the wide surface of our planet there is to find no landscape, where one can find in such a small area so many varied natural rarities as in the Bernese Upperland valley Lauterbrunnen; there one can see a valley enclosed by rocky walls, narrow but fertile in land and people where a river is wriggling through with many turns… rivers, creeks, springs and their crystal clear water ripple and fall and froth in the imagination and at both sides of the valley and plunge from one high rock face to the other… one can compare the Lauterbrunnen with no other suitable object other than a rarity box or a natural curiosities cabinet. (B. Hagerty)