Author: Maarten Koning

The four Barraud brothers are among Switzerland’s best-kept art secrets. They were born in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

François (1899-1934), Aimé (1902-1954), Charles (1897-1997) and Aurèle (1903-1969) are four talented painters from one family. They show more quality and variety in modern Swiss art than Giacometti’s and Ferdinand Hodler’s.

Their paintings are important works of European realism in the Interbellum (the 1920s and 1930s).

The museum MORE in Gorssel, The Netherlands, shows many of their paintings in the exhibition The Barraud Brothers.

(Source and further information: www.museummore.nl).

The growth of tourism in the second half of the nineteenth century led to the construction of many Grand Hotels in Graubünden, Berner Oberland, Valais, Vaud, Bern, Neuchâtel, Geneva, Zurich and Schwyz.

Winter and summer sports, bathing venues and health resorts were the main focus of tourists from the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, the Habsburg Empire, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States.  Les Trois Rois in Basel is one of the oldest Grand Hotels.

(Source: U. Bauer, J. Frischknecht, Unterwegs zu historischen Hotels der Schweiz, Winterthur, 2013).