Mountain landscape with lake

Mountain lake with staffage This painting from the collection of the Potoccy, the former owners of the castle of Łańcut, depicts a small lake, surrounded by mountains, with staffage of people and cattle. The light falls from the right side of the painting, its source – the invisible sun, casting its shine on the mountains, the water and the people. The painting is bright, with prevalence of green, beige, blues and pinks. The painting is signed on a stone on the right side de la Rive pxt 1791”. Wooden profiled frame, gilded, decorated with cymatia – Lesbian and Ionian, arranged in bands. The author of the painting, Pierre Louis de la Rive, was a swiss painter, designer and engraver. His father, a preacher, foresaw for his son a career in law, and it took a long time to convince the former that the son should be allowed to take up painting. Abandoning his legal studies, he started learning under landscape painter Nicolas Henri Joseph de Fassin, but these studies boiled down to copying Flemish and Dutch masters. After travelling to Germany in 1776, he joined the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts under guidance of Giovanni Battista Casanova, who encouraged him to paint landscapes. Following his return to Switzerland in 1787, he took up residence in Presigne, where he devoted himself to painting landscapes and historic scenes. In 1799-1801 his works were exhibited at a salon in Paris. His painting, originally of picturesque landscapes in the style of Wouwerman and Berchem, through works influenced by classical revival (mainly landscapes from Lake Geneva since 1790), is crowned by preromantic alpine landscapes (Italian influences), mainly of Mont Blanc and Valais (after 1800). The motif of Lake Geneva and the pinnacle of Mont Blanc are found throughout his work, with these landscapes depicted under diverse lighting conditions and in various times of the year, frequently enriched by staffage of people and cattle.