Michael van Orsouw01.05.2025In her day, Queen Victoria was the most powerful woman in the world. She came to Switzerland in 1868 to rest and recuperate, and made numerous sketches and paintings of the Swiss scenery. Many of these watercolours and drawings survive today.
Barbara Basting22.04.2025The Rhine Falls in Schaffhausen has been a popular subject matter in the art world for centuries. English painter J.M.W. Turner captured the power of the water on canvas particularly impressively in the early 19th century.
Michael van Orsouw13.03.2025Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sisi, visited Switzerland nine times and was an admirer of Swiss art, of which she purchased two pieces – setting in motion a trail of events that led all the way to the Federal Palace in Bern.
Barbara Basting18.02.2025Swiss painter Charles Gleyre (1806-1874), from Chevilly in the canton of Vaud, was an illustrious figure in the 19th century. Painters such as Albert Anker und Auguste Renoir studied at his Paris studio. Gleyre’s own works fused influences from Romanticism and Impressionism.
Cristina Gutbrod28.01.2025In 1898, the architect Gustav Gull (1858-1942) created designs for two cups as part of a collaboration with the goldsmith’s workshop run by Johann Karl Bossard (1846-1914) in Lucerne. That same year, the newly built Swiss National Museum in Zurich, also designed by Gull, opened its doors to the public. Gull and Bossard’s impressive networks of contacts came together in the planning and design of the museum.
Barbara Basting01.10.2024Cotton was the most important commodity of the 19th century. Yet very few artists took an interest in it. One who did was Edgar Degas. His painting of a cotton office in New Orleans is a truly spectacular work.
Kurt Messmer16.05.2024We humans are predisposed to brood over the changing nature of luck. The wheel of fortune has been turning since ancient times, and remains popular today. Around 1220, a rose window at Basel Cathedral was designed to resemble a wheel of fortune, homage was paid to the goddess Fortuna in a Bavarian monastery in the form of the Carmina Burana. Yet, undeserved luck plays no part in the Christian world view. Heavenly salvation is something that has to be earned.
