Born in Basel, Jakob Christoph Miville was a widely traveled painter and draftsman. A sojourn in Rome and tours of the Alps informed his early heroic landscapes. But it was only during his stay in Russia (1809 –1817) that he developed his distinctive feeling for nature: the vast expanses and sceneries he encountered in Crimea and the Caucasus inspired his evolution into a Romantic landscape artist. He returned to his native city with an extensive collection of sketches and studies, which served as the foundation for the paintings he continued to produce in Switzerland.