Fingerprint marks towards the bottom-left and right margins of the drawing are probably indications that he applied washes while these sheets were in the sketchbook and when he was perhaps close to the scene. The extent of the annotations to the drawing are unique in Towne’s practice and can perhaps be attributed to the unfamiliarity of this view, such that he had no mental reference points to rely on. Towne’s notes are chiefly to aid future colouring, but there are some names of peaks and, occasionally, a little explanation such as “gravel thrown / up by the Glaciere”. Presumably the grey ink of the drawing was drawn first, as it closely follows the pencil line, which has largely been erased. The grey pen inscriptions, themselves over pencil, were surely done around this time. As it makes no sense to think of Towne filling in the wash over the pencil before adding in the grey pen—it would only have obscured the pencil inscriptions and the pencil outline—surely the washes came after the pen. The brown inscriptions were presumably added after the grey inscriptions, although it is unclear whether they were added before or after the grey wash. The colour of the verso inscription is unknown but it would be no surprise if it were in the same brown ink used on the recto inscriptions. Towne favoured brown ink for verso inscriptions, and it is as if he added the brown inscriptions last, when reviewing the sketch around the time he inscribed the verso, to complete his record of the names of the major features and to add in a couple of colour notes he had omitted before.

As Coxe’s description makes clear, even in the 1770s there were basic facilities for the many English visitors to this glacier:

From the summit of the Montanvert we descended to the edge of the glacier; and made a refreshing meal upon some cold provision which we brought with us. A large block of granite, called “La pierre des Anglois”, served us for a table; and near us was a hovel, where those, who make expeditions towards Mont Blanc, frequently pass the night. The scene around us was magnificent and sublime; numberless rocks rising boldly above the clouds, some of whose tops were bare, others covered with snow. Many of these peaks gradually diminishing towards their summits, end in sharp points, and are called Needles. Between these rocks the valley of ice stretches several leagues in length, and is nearly a mile broad; extending on one side towards Mont Blanc, and, on the other, towards the plain of Chamouny. Since my first expedition [in 1776, and his second in 1785], Mr. Blair, an English gentleman, has built a more commodious wooden hut, which, from him, is called Blair’s Cabin.²

In his note Paul Oppé described the drawing thus:

Same [paper as FT374] double page. Very wild glacier between mts. Ind ink blue strong purple & blue cloud. Black indic snow, glacier etc Names of mt in brown. All these Swiss are much more naturalistic & less mannered than mine. The panoramas are definite topography. No art. Several are light & savage in effect. Few are really composed & imaginative. The feeling is . . . simple reality. Infinitely stronger than what went before. . . . & faithful. Savage.³

The owner of this drawing for much of the twentieth century was the writer and mountaineer Janet Adam Smith, who, in a review of the 1990 exhibition at Grasmere co-written with Peter Bicknell, judged the Montanvert sketch “probably the finest example of Towne’s magical conversion of his direct observation of a mountain scene into a brilliant work of art”.