The Alps were a familiar landscape for generations of British travellers, but it was only in the later part of the eighteenth century that their rugged and immense qualities could be appreciated for their Sublime associations. Here de Loutherbourg, who specialised in Sublime landscapes, supplies an element of narrative drama with tiny figures recoiling from their impending doom.

De Loutherbourg was a designer for the theatre, and he also created the ‘Eidophusikon’, a miniature theatre in which landscapes were animated and accompanied by music and sound effects. Both enabled him to take the exploration of the Sublime to extremes.