The full title given to this drawing in the Royal Academy catalogue of 1803 is ‘Glacier and source of the Arveron, going up to the Mer de Glace'. Turner may have used studies in the 'St Gothard and Mont Blanc sketchbook (T.B.LXXV), but no single one of them corresponds precisely to the whole composition. The closest is perhaps the study in black and white chalk on f.20 which was used again as the basis for the Liber Studiorum plate (R.60). f.21r of the same book is also apparently a view of the Source of the Arveiron. There is, however, a drawing in black chalk on grey prepared paper which gives the central motif of the design almost at its full scale (T.B.LXXIX-L). This was executed in series with the large and more finished ‘Road among Mountains' (No.60) and with a group of similar chalk drawings under the same number in the Turner Bequest. The drawing was purchased by Walter Fawkes.