Until the first half of the 19th century, a pair of candle scissors was an essential tool in every home, and the wick-trimming tool of the lighting technician in every major theatre.
A tobacco box with a tale or two to tell – or, how a gift from King Frederick I of Württemberg to Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg fell prey to a notorious art thief 200 years later.
Emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975), who was crowned ‘King of Kings’ in Addis Ababa in 1930, was believed in Ethiopia to have been chosen by God. The Rastafarians in Jamaica even ‘recognised’ him as their Messiah and God. A look at the dual ‘careers’ of a 20th-century figure who was as remarkable as he was controversial.
As a general, Henri Guisan led Switzerland through World War II. His public image alternated between resistance and diligent personal propagandisation. Including censorship!
300 years ago, a diverse array of special furniture designed for personal hygiene began to appear in the bedrooms and boudoirs of the French aristocracy. Among these was the ‘cleanliness seat’ – the bidet.
Her story sounds like a fairy tale from One Thousand and One Nights: as a child, Aïssé (1693/4-1733) found herself on the slave market in Constantinople and grew up in Parisian high society.
Without servants, most of them female, the extravagant lifestyle of a well-to-do family in centuries past would have been unthinkable. A glimpse behind the brilliantly polished façade of a grand household, with a focus on Jegenstorf Castle near Bern.
Katharina von Wattenwyl, from Bern, made a name for herself at the end of the 17th century. The price she paid for becoming embroiled in spying for the French court was imprisonment, torture and exile. People are still fascinated to this day by the life and fate of this extraordinary woman.
