Portrait d’enfant. Valentin en train de peindre, grandeur nature (Portrait of a Child. Valentin painting, life size) As a young man, Auguste Baud was influenced by his friendship with the artistically and intellectually inclined Bovy family of Geneva, who introduced him to the socialist ideals of Charles Fourier. His life grew even…
Chrétien et Plein d’Espoir capturés par le géant Désespoir (Christian and Hopeful captured by the giant Despair) Seeing Fra Angelico’s frescos on a trip to Italy in 1877 confirmed Eugène Burnand’s intention to turn to religious subjects: from the latter half of the 1890s on, he worked on nothing else. In addition…
Les Petites Brodeuses (The Little Embroideresses) This painting is the perfect example of how Swiss painters based abroad adapted their output to local markets. Albert Anker trained at the Vaud-born master Charles Gleyre’s Paris studio in the early 1850s. By the…
La reine Berthe et les fileuses (Queen Bertha and the Spinners) A woman is busy teaching four girls hand-spinning. The activity lets Albert Anker form a diagonal across the centre of the composition, from the basket full of carded wool to the tip of the spinning…
Brigand de la campagne romaine (Brigand in the Roman Campagna) Léopold Robert initially trained as an engraver. In 1812, he joined the studio of Jacques-Louis David, who encouraged him to turn to painting. Robert moved to Rome in 1818 and began producing genre scenes, imbuing…
Le Retour de la montagne (Return from the Mountain) The Bernese Oberland developed a busy tourist trade as early as the latter half of the eighteenth century. Local artists would churn out engravings and paintings of the most picturesque views showcasing a chocolate-box Switzerland…
Anges musiciens (Angel Musicians) The 1930s saw Louis Soutter produce thirty or so drawings in dialogue with the classical repertoire, particularly the Italian schools of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. They are not so much traditional copies after the…
Nature morte au plat de fruits (Still life with a dish of fruit) At the age of eighteen, Henri Manguin struck up a friendship with two fellow fine art students, Albert Marquet and Henri Matisse. The trio was joined by Charles Camoin, Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain and…
La Dispute religieuse de Lausanne (The Lausanne Disputation) The lands now known as the Vaud belonged to the House of Savoy and the Lausanne bishopric until they were annexed by Bern early in 1536. The region’s new masters set out to rally the…
Sapho se précipitant dans la mer (Sappho throwing herself in the sea) Laura B. Goeldlin de Tiefenau was born in the United States and studied painting and sculpting in Santa Barbara, California. When she moved to Switzerland in 1928, her sculptures took a symbolic, mystical turn: she…