Henry Bright was part of the Norwich School of painting and made his name as a specialist in ‘coloured chalks’, now known as pastels. He made several trips abroad, including one to the Val d'Aosta in the winter of 1849 from which this evocative panorama dates.

In the vein of the Alpine landscapes by Edward Lear, Elijah Walton and Turner, Bright’s view of the south face of Mont Blanc seen from Courmayeur mixes atmosphere and topography with a specific emphasis, common to the itinerant British painter, on the sublime aspect of the scene. An ominous cloud of spindrift and fog plunges down the couloir to the right of the village overseen by a wheeling vulture.  With its distinctive parish church, San Pantaleone, appears dwarfed by the arena of surrounding mountains.