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.

In the 17th century, very few women went without a Brämikappe. At least that is the impression we have from countless portraits of women from that time.