Joya Indermühle28.02.2023The forerunners of the first fashion magazines were published in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV. Like their modern counterparts, they pictured seasonal fashion trends, and helped to create the fashion system as we know it today.
Beatriz Chadour-Sampson23.02.2023Jewellery does not have to be static. The jewellery artist Friedrich Becker was also of this opinion and created fascinating pieces of jewellery with moving parts. Some of them found their way into the collection of the Swiss National Museum.
Beatriz Chadour-Sampson26.01.2023Rings can be more than simply adornment, expression of personal sentiment or symbols of status, they can also conceal or openly show allegiance to a political cause. In some cases, such affiliations could have dangerous consequences, even death.
Murielle Schlup19.01.2023French king Louis XIV liked to use dance as a way of projecting his absolute power. A year before his glorious coronation, he embodied the rising sun – dressed as the sun god, Apollo – in the centre of the planetary system.
Michèle Seehafer09.01.2023The Baroque period saw increasing numbers of female artists begin to question the social structures of the age. The stories of Anna Waser and Maria Sibylla Merian demonstrate how these female artists fully bore comparison with their male contemporaries.
Julia Burbulla28.12.2022In France the layout of the Baroque garden was subject to strict rules, and its purpose was to illustrate power and wealth. Here in Switzerland, too, members of the aristocracy and the wealthy merchant classes constructed their gardens based on the French model – albeit with good Swiss simplicity.
Beatriz Chadour-Sampson26.12.2022European artists and jewellers shared a common visual language of love and romance, with some symbolism dating as far back as ancient Greece and Rome. Among many design motifs, musical themes, pastoral settings, flowers and animals are all traditionally found on jewellery with romantic associations.
Thomas Weibel23.12.2022"Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel": in the 1973 Czech-German fantasy film, three enchanted hazelnuts make all the heroine’s dreams come true. But even without any magic, the hazelnut is a remarkable fruit.
