In addition to his historical paintings for which he is well known today, Francisco Pradilla also explored other genres such as the portrait and landscapes. His celebrated self-portraits adopted similar techniques to those that the Impressionists were experimenting with at the same time. Among his landscapes, the present painting is a notable example of Pradilla’s work in this area. It depicts a view of high mountains, perhaps the Peaks of Europe, where the far-off fog blends into a sky that forebodes a storm. The painting is executed in loose brushstrokes, alla prima, and seems to have been done quickly in situ, following the plein airprinciples of the Barbizon school. The thick dabs of paint mix with the smoother areas and there is work with a spatula or with the handle of a brush to scratch the pictorial surface and simulate grass.

We have the testimony of Pradilla himself: “this painting belongs to a series of small paintings with which I proposed to myself to study, as much as possible in nature, the truth, we could say objectively and subjectively; of pictorial scenes outside, with the purpose as well to create rapport between each one and the different hours of the day”. They are works painted in the Cantabrian mountains or in the hills of Galicia, which he was familiar with owing to his wife’s family connection with the north of Spain.

This work is related to sketches from life of similar measurements documented by Wifredo Rincón García and included in the inventory of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection with the same type of numbering.