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Glaciers are considered to be key climatic markers as they react in a sensitive way to past climate changes. The historical method is particularly apt for reconstructing the evolution of glaciers in the Little Ice Age. This article uses examples from the regions of Mont Blanc and of the Central Swiss Alps which, in the eighteenth century, were characterized by the apparition of high-quality iconographical sources. In these two regions, historical sources document two glacial progressions, one around 1720 and the other in the 1770s. In parallel with these advances, there was a shift in perception from the magical-mysterious object to the object of scientific enquiry: at the beginning of the eighteenth century glaciers were, above all, perceived as a threat, but this perception changed when they turned into an object of fascination for artists and tourists and an object of study for scientists. In conclusion, eighteenth-century glaciers contrast strongly with the present situation of a global melting of glaciers.