This fine watercolour of the Matterhorn is taken from one of Schiess' working sketchbooks. Despite its popularity later in the century, at the time this drawing was made, getting to the valley and village of Zermatt was an undertaking on its own.

Although Schiess’s working career as a landscape artist lasted only fifteen years, he was a prolific painter and undertook annual painting and sketching trips every summer from 1857 to the end of his life. He studied in Johann Gottfried Steffan’s studio in Munich and married his daughter, Emilie, a few years later.