Félix Vallotton La paresse (Idleness), 1896 By 1900, Vallotton was renowned in Paris as one of the major protagonists in the revival of printmaking. He had begun making drypoint works and…
Albert Welti Portrait de famille (Family Portrait), 1904 A number of features in this family portrait reflect the influence of the Northern Old Masters, including the historiated frame carved by the artist himself,…
Johann Friedrich August Tischbein Portrait de Nicolas Châtelain, c. 1800–10 Nicolas Châtelain and Johann Friedrich August Tischbein – the model and his painter – both belonged to grand dynasties. Châtelain, the son of a pastor,…
On display Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours Le tremblement de terre (The Earthquake), 1806 Trained in Paris in the studio of Joseph-Marie Vien, Saint-Ours set up in Rome in 1780. In 1792 he returned to Geneva to fight for…
On display François Diday Le glacier du Rosenlaui (The Rosenlaui Glacier), 1841 François Diday studied fine art in Geneva and then in Antoine-Jean Gros’ studio in Paris. He showed his work regularly at the Paris Salon, where…
On display Auguste Baud-Bovy Lioba! Berger de l’Oberland bernois rappelant son troupeau (Lioba! A Shepherd in the Bernese Oberland Calling back His Flock), 1886 In 1882, Auguste Baud-Bovy left Geneva for Paris to be with his Communard friends and the artists of the French-Swiss colony. During his time there…
Paul Friedrich Wilhelm Balmer Quatre frères (Four Brothers), 1903/4 This long frieze juxtaposes head-and-shoulders portraits of the artist's family. To the left are his older sons Rico and Jean-Jacques in Russian costumes, then Luc,…
Edgar Degas Femme s’essuyant la nuque (Woman Drying Her Neck), c. 1903 Degas produced some two hundred pastels on the theme of women washing, placing the emphasis on the action itself: the figure is presented in close…
Charles Gleyre Etude d’un Nubien (Study of a Nubian), between 1835 and 1837 Charles Gleyre had been in Rome for five years when, in spring 1834, he had the opportunity to live the dream that obsessed all Romantics:…
Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen Fortifs (Fortifications), 1886 When Paris was modernised during the Second Empire, the poorest sectors of the population were driven out of the city's historic centre. Like Vincent van…
Luigi Monteverde Raisins (Grapes), 1889 Monteverde's childhood was divided between Lugano, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo, where his brother, a painter and decorator, taught him his trade. In 1870, Monteverde travelled…
On display Cuno Amiet Portrait d'Anna Amiet (Portrait of Anna Amiet), 1923 Solothurn-born Cuno Amiet, a long-standing friend of Giovanni Giacometti since their days studying art in Munich and sharing lodgings and a studio in Paris in…
Jacques Sablet Le peintre dans son atelier avec ses parents (The Painter in his Studio with his Parents), 1781 Jacques Sablet was thirty-two when he took the painful decision to move on from history painting, having moved to Rome in a failed attempt to…
On display Jacques Sablet Portrait de famille avec la Basilique de Maxence (Family Portrait with the Basilica of Maxentius), 1791 This painting, the companion piece to the Museum's Portrait de famille avec le Colisée (Family Portrait with the Colosseum, 1791), similarly shows a group of…
On display Jacques Sablet Autoportrait (Self-Portrait), circa 1778 The soft brushwork and warm brown tones in this self-portrait of Jacques Sablet in his travelling coat are typical of the artist's first period, influenced…
Aloïse (Aloïse Corbaz, dite) Materdolorosa, 1922 Lausanne-born Aloïse Corbaz was a governess who was employed at the court of Wilhelm II in Germany for a while. On her return to Switzerland…
Aloïse (Aloïse Corbaz, dite) La Couronne Impériale de la terre royale. Cahier Pâques 1943 (The Imperial Crown of the Royal Land. Easter sketchpad 1943), 1943 Aloïse was fifty-seven and in her twenty-third year as a patient at the Gimel asylum when she filled the twenty pages of this sketchpad with…
Ferdinand Hodler Portrait du Dr Louis Bourget, 1889 Hodler’s particular interest in the portrait towards the end of the 1880s is reflected in the idea of a course on the subject that he…
Marc Louis Benjamin Vautier (L'Aîné) Une vente aux enchères dans l'Oberland bernois (An Auction in the Bernese Oberland), 1856 The shift from a predominantly rural to an industrial society from the 1830s on led to the emergence of an ethnographic school of painting whose…
Félix Vallotton Le château Gaillard (Château Gaillard), 1924 In 1924, when travelling to Honfleur, where he rented a villa for the summer in 1909, Félix Vallotton stopped at Les Andelys, a village on…
René Auberjonois Autoportrait (Self-Portrait), 1929 René Auberjonois frequently tried his hand at self-portraits. He was familiar with the difficulties of the exercise. As he wrote in 1916, ‘It is a…
On display Alexandre Calame Le lac de Brienz (Lake Brienz), 1843 Alexandre Calame’s talent was first spotted in 1829 by the banker Jacques-Amédée Diodati, who paid for him to study with François Diday, the master of…
On display Ernest Biéler Devant l’église de Saint-Germain à Savièse (Outside the Church of Saint-Germain in Savièse), 1886 Born in the Canton of Vaud, Ernest Biéler moved to Paris in the early 1880s but continued to live in Switzerland from time to time.…
Albert Marquet Samois, l’île (Samois, Island), 1917 Albert Marquet spend August and September 1917 living by the Seine in Samois, a village about forty miles south-east of Paris. Once he had found…
Albert Marquet Grimstad, Norvège (Grimstad, Norway), 1925 Albert Marquet's art betrays a lifelong, near-obsessive fascination with water. He took little interest in sites of outstanding beauty or remarkable views. The scenes he…
On display François Bocion Lac et pêcheurs (Lake and Fishermen), 1885 François Bocion spent most of his life by Lake Geneva, exploring its shoreline in both Switzerland and France. Many works painted in Yvoire, Évian and…
On display Giovanni Giacometti Maloja en hiver or Piz Lagrev (Maloja in Winter or Piz Lagrev), 1929 When Ferdinand Hodler died in 1918, Giovanni Giacometti became one of the leading figures on the Swiss German art scene, rivalled only by with Cuno…
