The Rosenlaui glacier is at the foot of two spectacular Alpine peaks, including the Dossenhorn, though they do not command attention here. Instead John Brett made a meticulous study of different types of rocks and pebbles. This reflects the critic John Ruskin’s sentiment that a small stone was ‘a mountain in miniature’.Brett had travelled to Switzerland after reading Ruskin’s Of Mountain Beauty. Whilst in the Alps he met the artist John William Inchbold who influenced him to ‘paint all I could see’.