Lot 2269 Dα

After his studies at the Brussels Academy, Jean François Xavier Roffiaen spent most of his career painting Alpine landscapes, and undertook numerous journeys to Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria in search of motifs. Among the collectors of his paintings were the Shah of Persia as well as the royal houses of Belgium and Great Britain. A view of the Alps by Jean François Xavier Roffiaen, which is very similar in size to the present painting and shows the Bavarian Königsee, was given by Prince Albert to his wife Queen Victoria as a birthday present in 1861. This painting is still in the Royal Collection today and is kept in the Drawing Room of Osborne House. A study trip by the artist to Scotland commissioned by Queen Victoria in the same year was cancelled due to the sudden death of the Prince Consort.