A genre and landscape painter, as well as a caricaturist and engraver, Wolfgang-Adam Töpffer is a major figure of the first Genevan school.

Along with Pierre-Louis de la Rive, he roamed the region in search of landscapes, whose motifs both artists studied. Taking inspiration from Dutch models and from an idyllic vision of nature that particularly suited the rural way of life in the Lake Geneva region, Töpffer contributed to the revival of genre painting.

His creations depict everyday events, the life of markets and the countryside, which he rendered with a picturesque touch and an effort to represent nature as it appeared to him. Recognised among other things for this mastery of watercolour, Töpffer used a new technique, the “sepia wash”, which can be seen in La Promenade de Saint-Antoine à Genève.