Agenda

1848 and 1849 were uncertain years for the new Swiss Confederation. The Sonderbund War of 1847, the tensions between the kingdom of Prussia about Neuchâtel and the new constitution of 1848 were decisive events in the old Confederation of 25 sovereign cantons and their mostly different historical, religious, political, linguistic and geographical orientations.

This first democratic state (measured by the standards of the time) on the European continent was, so to speak, the first European Union. The neighbouring regions of Switzerland were much more turbulent in those years. Uprisings and revolutions in France (Habsburg), Italy, Austria and Germany (the German Confederation) ended in military violence and a new absolutism.

Thousands of citizens found refuge in Switzerland, much against the will of the rulers in the neighbouring countries. The Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859) even threatened an invasion!

The Grand Duchy of Baden (1806-1918) was even one of the most important revolutionary territories in the German Confederation. Following the exhibition in the Dreiländermuseum in Lörrach, the museum in Rastatt is now presenting an exhibition on the Rastatt uprising of 1848 and 1849 in the magnificent Residenzpalast. After the failed uprising, many Baden citizens sought refuge in Switzerland.

The exhibition is primarily dedicated to the two phases of the Baden Revolution and focuses on military endeavours. 1848 was dominated by the three “armies’ of Friedrich Hecker (1811-1881), Georg Herwegh (1817-1885)  and Gustav Struve (1805-1870)  and the battles at Kandern, Dossenbach and Staufen.

The year 1849 was characterised by the Constitutional Campaign of the Deutsche Bund, the flight of the Grand Duke of Baden and the climax of the soldiers’ uprising in Rastatt. The exhibition also looks at the military in Baden at the time and the federal fortress of Rastatt. The defeat of the revolutionary army in the fortress of Rastatt on 23 July 1849 marked the climax and end point of the revolution.

The Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne (Canton of Vaud) hosts an exceptional exhibition in partnership with the Museum Langmatt in Baden (canton of Aargau). The magnificent collection of primarily Impressionist works, acquired between 1908 and 1919 by the collector couple Jenny and Sidney Brown, is coming to the Hermitage for its first public display outside its home at Villa Langmatt.

Forty years after the Fondation’s inaugural exhibition of works from French-speaking Switzerland, L’impressionnisme dans les collections romandes, the Fondation presents the most prestigious collections of Impressionism from the German-speaking cantons.

Villa Langmatt

This major event will also celebrate the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, which crystallized in 1874 with the first collective exhibition by a group of young independent artists.

Jenny Sulzer (1871-1968) and Sidney Brown (1865-1941) were each born into important entrepreneurial families based in Winterthur and married in 1896. While on their honeymoon in Paris, they bought their first painting, a landscape by Eugène Boudin. This acquisition established their interest in French painting, notably its use of colour and effects of light.

Villa Langmatt

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Browns frequently travelled to explore the art of their time and support artists. The collection is dominated by landscapes and still lifes, including works by Pierre Bonnard, Eugène Boudin, Mary Cassatt, Camille Corot, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Henri Fantin-Latour, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, making it one of Switzerland’s finest and most significant Impressionist collections.

These masterpieces are now held at the Villa Langmatt, an Art Nouveau residence influenced by English rural architecture. Built for the Browns by architect Karl Moser between 1899 and 1901, the house is closed for extensive restoration.

The exhibition at the Fondation de l’Hermitage will feature over 60 of the most remarkable works from the Langmatt collection. The exhibition will then travel to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne, followed by the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna.

Johann Melchior Wyrsch (1732-1798) was one of Switzerland’s most important representatives of 18th-century portrait painting. Bourgeois and aristocratic ladies and gentlemen from central Switzerland, Solothurn, Besançon and the Franche-Comté ordered portraits from him.

Born in Buochs in 1732, he received his training in Lucerne and Einsiedeln. In 1753 and 1754, he worked in Rome and Naples. After returning to Nidwalden, he married Maria Barbara Keyser (1740-1803) in 1761.

Buochs, Johann Melchior Wyrsch 

The couple settled in Besançon in 1768, and Wyrsch founded an academy of painting and sculpture. After successful years as a portrait painter and director of the academy, he returned to Switzerland and became director of the municipal drawing school in Lucerne in 1784. In 1798, he was shot during the French invasion, although he was a mediator (or just because of that).

The exhibition ‘Johann Melchior Wyrsch. Frauenbildnisse’ (Johann Melchior Wyrsch. Portraits of women) at the Winkelriedhaus Museum in Nidwalden shows his portraits of women from the museum’s collection ann private collections.