John Ruskin (1819–1900), View of Brugg
, Watercolor and gouache, with pen and black ink, over pencil, Purchased on the Charles Ryskamp Fund, with the special assistance of the Herzog Fund
, 1994.11
Ruskin had planned to write and illustrate a history of the Swiss people based on the architecture of their towns. He first visited Brugg on 27 May 1858, and wrote to his father of "making a little sketch from the rocks of some houses which looked somewhat as if they might tumble into the Rhine before I got back again." This drawing was completed during a later visit to Brugg in November, 1862. The Swiss history was never realized.