**Design for a Renaissance-style pendant with figure of Charity, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1901.** Swiss National Museum

Atelier Bossard: At the pulse of jewellery fashion

For two generations in the late 19th century, the Lucerne goldsmiths Bossard created jewellery to meet the demands of their customers. Pieces in the styles from historicism to art deco were sold between 1868 and 1934.

Beatriz Chadour-Sampson

Based in England Beatriz Chadour-Sampson is an international jewellery historian. Her publications range from Antiquity to the present day, such as 2000 Finger Rings from the Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Switzerland (1994) of which she continues to be a consultant for the Swiss National Museum.

Atelier Bossard, Swiss goldsmiths and jewellers originally founded in 1775 in Zug, was a hugely successful business in Lucerne under the management of father and son Johann Karl (1846-1914) and Karl Thomas (1876-1934) Bossard. The Swiss National Museum holds a major collection of Bossard artefacts and the company archive from this period with numerous models, drawings, order books and sale ledgers. Bossard’s clients hailed from throughout Europe and the United States; the guest books read like a Who’s Who of contemporary celebrities, aristocratic families, industrialists, collectors and museum curators.

**Johann Karl Bossard is depicted as a proud man in his portrait, painted in 1909 by Jean Syndon Faurie.** Swiss National Museum

For over 40 years Johann Karl Bossard collected silver artefacts, goldsmiths' work and jewellery from earlier periods, both as a sample collection to study goldsmithing techniques and to offer for sale in his antiques shop. In 1889 he wrote to the famous Parisian jeweller Lucien Falize stating: ‘In accordance with my customers’ wishes, I work in all styles up to the Empire period, mainly from my own designs as well as from my models and drawings by old masters. I have the ambition to produce my works in the spirit of the respective epoch’. Historicism – deliberating reviving or imitating earlier design styles – was in vogue in Europe when Bossard was at its most successful from the 1870s to 1890s. After Johann Karl’s death in 1914, Karl Thomas continued to use his father’s drawings and received commissions for Renaissance Revival jewels from Swiss clientele as late as the 1920s, while simultaneously following the more recent styles of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. The Bossard workshop was chiefly associated with silverware, church silver and arms and armour in historical styles, and less known for its jewellery designs. As jewellery is more personal and handed down from one generation to another, it often remains in private ownership, so very few examples of Bossard jewellery are in the public sphere. The surviving design drawings and models, either in lead or plaster casts, from the Bossard workshop are now in the Swiss National Museum, Zurich, and are hugely important for the study of the firm’s jewellery. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries there was a fascination for the culture and arts of ancient Greece and Rome, largely due to much-publicised archaeological finds. The popularity of classical revival jewellery was triggered by the jewellers Castellani in Rome in the mid-19th century. From 1882 onwards Johann Karl travelled to Italy frequently and it can be assumed he visited Castellani. Bossard’s design for a ring with a Heracles knot is one of many produced by the company that reflect the fashion for archaeological-style jewellery. Augusto Castellani, who managed the branch in Rome, even appears in Bossard's visitors' book in 1892/93. Like Bossard, Castellani owned a large private collection of antique jewelry and ran an antique shop alongside the workshop.

**Design for a Heracles knot ring in the neoclassical style, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1914.** Swiss National Museum

In 1869 the opening of the French-built Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, sparked a fascination for Egyptian art and antiques, amusingly referred to by contemporaries as ‘Egyptomania’. Pyramids, mummies, sphinxes and scarabs captivated the imagination of jewellers, including Bossard. One of many drawings in this style from the archive depicts a gold bracelet with the heads of a male and female pharaoh facing each other, inspired by a pair of Egypto-Greek bracelets in the Residenz museum in Munich.

**Design for Egyptian-style bracelet with male and female Pharaohs, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1914.** Swiss National Museum

A passion for the arts of the medieval period emerged during the 1830s and 1840s, when the cultural movement Romanticism embraced the chivalric myths and legends of the Middle Ages. In the following decades, jewellery in the Gothic Revival style grew increasingly popular, especially in France and England. Many of the surviving drawings by Johann Karl Bossard show his fascination for the period. Various drawings and a lead model for a 14th-century-style ring with the initials ‘B’ and ‘H’ may have been for a commission. Medieval examples of this ring type exist in museum collections, but are the Bossard drawings for the production of revival jewellery or simply studies of medieval examples from the company’s antiques shop? Another question arises: are the parallels in museums genuinely medieval or could they be 19th century revivals?

**Design for a medieval-style ring, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1901.** Swiss National Museum

**Gold and enamel ring, inscribed ‘ICH HOFFE/GE NADA VROWE’, German, 1330-1350.** Swiss National Museum

Bossard was frequently commissioned by clerics to make church silver, and, occasionally, personal jewellery. An amazing discovery during recent research was of a ring in a private collection matching a drawing in the archive. This amethyst ring features figures of St. Gallus, with his attribute the bear, and St. Augustine of Hippo with an open book, quill and heart. It was confirmed to have been commissioned by Dr Augustinus Egger, Bishop of St. Gallen from 1882 to 1906, in the medieval tradition of a ceremonial bishop’s ring.

**Design of ring made for Dr Augustinus Egger, Bishop of St. Gallen, Atelier Bossard, 1882.** Swiss National Museum

Gold and amethyst ring belonging to Dr Augustinus Egger, Bishop of St. Gallen, with engraved Latin inscriptions: ‘HAEC REQUIES MEA’ (Psalm 131, 14) and ‘INQUIETUM COR NOSTRUM’ (Augustine’s Confessions), Atelier Bossard, 1882. Private Collection

When Johann Karl Bossard took over the business in 1868, the Renaissance Revival or neo-Renaissance style was hugely popular. European jewellers, most notably from German-speaking regions, drew their inspiration from Renaissance artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger and Albrecht Dürer. Recent publications of famous treasury collections, like that of the Green Vaults in Dresden, the Treasury in Munich and the Medici collection in Florence, were inspirational sources for designs, as were re-printed volumes of ornamental prints by Renaissance artists. The two-tailed siren or mermaid (known as ‘Melusine’ in Switzerland) is a frequently found motif in Atelier Bossard pieces, appearing in drawings and a lead model. The design appears to have been based on a print by Virgil Solis, and a much-illustrated siren pendant (dated c. 1600) from the Green Vaults in Dresden. Karl Thomas continued to use his father’s composition in several variations, for example as a mandolin-playing siren. The Melusine forms the coat of arms of the Vischer family in Basel and variations of the pendant were commissioned from Bossard in the 1920s by Fritz and Amélie Vischer-Bachofen to mark various family occasions.

**Ornamental print with mermaid, merman and siren by Virgil Solis, Nuremberg, 1530-1562.** Victoria and Albert Museum

**Drawing for a chain with pendant showing a siren playing a mandolin, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1934.** Swiss National Museum

Ambiguity over the provenance of Renaissance and neo-Renaissance jewels became as much an issue for contemporaries and later collectors as the dating of medieval pieces. In 1885 Arthur Pabst, the first director of the MAKK, in Cologne, wrote in a journal article about the International Exhibition of Metalwork in Nuremberg: ‘Bossard’s deceptively well imitated Renaissance jewellery is the horror of all collectors’. A ring with caryatid figures and clasped hands in the Alice and Louis Koch Collection was published in 1994 with justifiable questions raised about its true date. Only lately has the drawing for its design been revealed in the Bossard archive, underlining the difficulties of dating Renaissance-style jewels. A drawing for a Renaissance Revival pendant with the figure of Charity, based on a design by Daniel Mignot from about 1596-1616, shows how Bossard transformed and adapted motifs. Here the floral ornament and choice of colour belongs stylistically to the late 19th century and the figure has a feel of Japonisme, a style inspired by Japanese art and design that was influential at the time.

**Gold and enamel ring with caryatid figures and clasped right hands, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1901.** Alice and Louis Koch Collection

**Design for Renaissance-style ring, Atelier Bossard, 1868-1901.** Swiss National Museum

In 1901, when Johann Karl handed over the business to his son Karl Thomas, tastes in jewellery had radically changed. For a few conservative clients Karl Thomas continued to use his father’s historicist jewellery designs, but from around 1900 most of Bossard’s jewellery sales were of pieces in the contemporary Art Nouveau style, characterised by sinuous forms and designs inspired by nature. From the 1920s, the firm also offered jewellery in the more geometric and futuristic Art Deco style. It can be assumed Karl Thomas visited the famous Paris World Exhibitions in 1900 and 1925 to gain inspiration from current fashions in jewellery as his designs followed fashionable Paris trends. An Art Nouveau pendant by Bossard featuring gingko leaves and probably with plique-à-jour enamel reflects the early 20th-century fascination with Japanese art. Designs from the 1920s also show the influence of contemporary art movements like Cubism, such as in the monochrome palette of black and white of an Art Deco pendant. With jewellery, Atelier Bossard had to adapt to a changing society and tastes. By contrast, Bossard’s silver wares, the chief focus of the business, continued to be made in historicist styles well into the 20th century.

Design for Art nouveau pendant with gingko leaves, Atelier Bossard, 1901-1914. — **Design for Art Nouveau pendant with gingko leaves, Atelier Bossard, 1901-1914.** Swiss National Museum

**Design for an Art Deco pendant, Atelier Bossard, 1920-1934.** Swiss National Museum

Brilliant craftsmanship. Bossard Goldsmiths Lucerne

19.07.2024 06.04.2025 / National Museum Zurich

Atelier Bossard in Lucerne was one of Switzerland’s most renowned goldsmith’s workshops in the 19th century. Splendid trophies, silverware and jewellery were produced and sold all over the world under the leadership of company founder Johann Karl Bossard (1846-1914). The exhibition in the National Museum Zurich’s Hall of Fame displays the workshop’s most beautiful pieces, reviving Bossard’s former brilliance.

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