Josef Madlener - "The mountain spirit"

Josef Madlener - "The mountain spirit"

Humphrey Carpenter in his 1977 biography relates that Tolkien owned a postcard entitled Der Berggeist ("the mountain spirit"), and on the paper cover in which he kept it, he wrote "the origin of Gandalf". The postcard reproduces a painting of a bearded figure, sitting on a rock under a pine tree in a mountainous setting. He wears a wide-brimmed round hat and a long red cloak, and a white fawn is nuzzling his upturned hands.

Carpenter said that Tolkien recalled buying the postcard during his holiday in Switzerland in 1911.