This picture, which, like the 'Landscape' from the Louvre (see No.620), was formerly in the Groult collection in Paris, is one of the small group that 'got away' from the Turner Bequest. Some can be traced back to the descendants of Turner's housekeeper (see No.623) but no early history is known in this case. The title is, therefore, based on supposition but there is a strong possibility that this picture and the two smaller oils in the Turner Bequest (Nos.569 and 570) were the result of the same visit to the Alps that produced 'SnowStorm, Avalanche, and Inundation - a Scene in the Upper Part of the Val d'Aout, Piedmont', exhibited in 1837 (No.567). In fact this picture may well be an 'unfinished' beginning of a companion work. On the other hand, it is just possible that the composition, like several other 'unfinished' oils of this character, was derived from a Liber Studiorum subject. There is some resemblance, particularly in the fairly sharply differentiated foreground, to 'Ben Arthur', R.69, published on 1 June 1819 and classified as 'M' for Mountainous.

The picture may have been that referred to in a letter by Camille Pissarro written in June 1894 to his son Lucien, describing an exhibition of English pictures then being held in Paris, which included 'two Turners belonging to Groult, which are quite beautiful'. At that time Groult owned only two genuine Turners, the Louvre 'Landscape' and this picture, although he was soon to acquire 'Ancient Italy - Ovid banished from Rome' (private collection, Portugal).