BIRMANN (Samuel). La lac de Chède. Basel, Birmann et fils, 1826. Watercolour and gouache aquatint, 16.5 x 22 cm, on sheet under mat. A fine print from Souvenirs de la Vallée de Chamonix. Samuel Birmann (Basel, 1793 - 1847) learnt drawing and watercolour in the studio of his father, Peter Birmann, himself a painter and engraver. In 1815, he travelled to Rome with the landscape painters Jakob Christoph Bischoff and Friedrich Salathé. In 1817, he travelled to Sicily, where he produced drawings in a fine romantic vein, which were reproduced in Ostervald's Voyage pittoresque en Sicile. On his return to Basel, he published a number of views of the Alps, in a style that combined romanticism and precision of detail, which were to make the Birmann et fils publishing house a success. Suffering from depression, he took his own life in 1847.