Le remorqueur (The Tug) September 24, 1859. The Lake Geneva tugboat operating company launches the Mercure in Morges harbour as a crowd of onlookers claps and cheers. The steamship, designed by the famous Zurich-based shipbuilders Escher, Wyss & Cie,…
Le tombeau de Plautius sur la route de Tivoli (The tomb of Plautius on the road to Tivoli) François Keiserman arrived in Rome in 1789, financed by the Vaud-based art entrepreneur Louis Ducros who had hired him as a watercolourist at his rapidly expanding engraving studio. Keiserman soon specialised in veduti, or topographical…
Les Initiés (The Initiates) Auguste de Niederhaüsern studied industrial art and fine art in Geneva before moving to Paris in 1886, where he joined the studios of the sculptors Henri Chapu and later Alexandre Falguière. He wanted to study…
Fête patronale au val d’Hérens (Patronal Feast Day, Val d’Hérens) Edouard Ravel studied under Barthélemy Menn and Alfred van Muyden and eventually took up a teaching position at the Geneva School of Fine Art himself. Like many other Swiss artists of his generation, he made…
Au pied du Salève (At the foot of the Salève) Ferdinand Hodler painted this landscape at the foot of the Salève, near Veyrier, in the countryside outside Geneva. This is the largest of some fifteen scenes of the marshland he worked on between 1888 and…
Le mal de dents (Toothache) Like many other artists, Marius Borgeaud spent much of his career painting in Brittany. But while others focused on picturesque Breton scenes, from widows mourning husbands lost at sea to traditional costumes, sunsets, and religious…
Cavaliers turcs et arabe (Turks and an Arab on horseback) The spring of 1838 saw Charles Gleyre return to Paris after a lengthy tour of the eastern Mediterranean. It took him until 1843 to digest and synthesise his experiences in Le Soir ou Les Illusions…
Ier Chant (First Song) In June 1918, Alice Bailly became acquainted with Werner Reinhart, a German-speaking Swiss philanthropist renowned for his patronage of the arts. The pair met in Geneva at the home of the artist Alexandre Cingria. Werner…
Portrait du général Bonaparte (Portrait of General Bonaparte) This life-sized bust was commissioned by the Directoire, which hailed Napoléon Bonaparte as a hero on his return from the Italian campaign in December 1797. He sat for an initial version in plaster before setting…
Rade de Genève ou Vol de mouettes (Geneva Harbour or Flight of Gulls) Alice Bailly was on the cusp of turning forty when her decision to adopt an avant-garde style paid off in Paris. She became friends with Guillaume Apollinaire, spent time with Sonia and Robert Delaunay, and…