Claude-Louis Chatelet contributed seven drawings of mount St. Gothard alone to a large-size volume of over two-hundred Views... of Switzerland (see below). Waterfalls seem to have been his specialty. All of his St. Gothard drawings include bridges and/or cascading water. One of the etchings (engraved by Masquelier) in the Views…of Switzerland depicts the same view as the present painting - not identical in detail, but in composition and scale. Two paintings by Chatelet (Sotheby’s, London, July 6, 2000) also show elements similar to the present painting: the same heavy rocks in the foreground, a waterfall, fishermen in the foreground, and feathery trees at top.

Chatelet paintings tend to appear as “attributed” or “follower of”, since there is very little documentary evidence on this painter. He does not show up in the lists of the Academy in Paris, there are no known exhibition records. We do know, however, that he travelled to Switzerland in the mid-1770’s, accompanying Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, twenty years his elder, also a draughtsman, but also a writer and publisher. De Laborde is the author of the first two encyclopedic volumes of Views…of Switzerland, describing its population, topography, government etc. Volume no. 3 contains the engravings after Chatelet’s drawings.

The two travel companions, upon their return to Paris, did not only cooperate in this publication, but also as active members in the Revolutionary Tribunal, which was responsible for the Terror. After the fall of Robespierre, both Laborde and Chatelet were guillotined.