Jens Juel’s View from Veyrier over Lake Geneva towards the Jura Mountains with its large, lonely tree is the largest landscape painting Juel painted. In 1772, Juel received a travel grant from “a circle at the court”. Already that same year he set off: Hamburg, Dresden, and Vienna. In 1774 he reached Rome, where he met among others Abildgaard, who was similarly on an educational trip. In 1776 he travelled on to Paris, where he met the copper engraver J.F. Clemens. Together Juel and Clemens went to Geneva, and the two towers to the right in the background of the painting are those of the St. Pierre cathedral in Geneva. Juel was busy with ordered works for the wealthy families of Geneva and stayed in the city until 1779. Clemens had already returned home to Copenhagen. In 1781 he was married, and perhaps View from Veyrier over Lake Geneva towards the Jura Mountains was a wedding present from Juel to Clemens as a memento of the good years the two friends had shared in Geneva. The painting was purchased from Clemens’ estate by the landscape painter J.P. Møller and after his return in 1838 Thorvaldsen purchased the painting for his collection.