Study of landscape, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

William Trost Richards rendered this pen sketch of the Lauterbrunnen Valley during a European tour. The composition captures the dramatic Alpine terrain through economical line work: sharp peaks rising behind forested slopes, the valley floor suggested through parallel hatching. Richards developed his landscape vocabulary in the Hudson River School tradition, later becoming known for luminous oil paintings of American scenery. This working study—raw and directional—reveals the artist's process of translating topography into manageable visual form, a practice central to nineteenth-century landscape practice.