print
- Museum number
- 1958,0712.2023
- Title
- Object: Procession Bernoise
- Description
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View of a large square in Bern with a procession of figures in colourful striped uniforms, a bear and a woman with a huge wig on the right; coat of arms beneath the image; within wash border
Etching, engraving and aquatint with hand colouring
- Production date
- 1785
- Dimensions
-
Height: 563 millimetres (sheet)
-
Width: 755 millimetres (sheet)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This striking print commemorates the annual Easter procession in Bern through the Waisenhausplatz of members of the honorary company of the Outer Estate (‘Louable Etat extérieur’; see Peter Meyer (ed.), Berner - deine Geschichte, Büchler Verlag, Bern 1981, p. 139). Members of the Outer Estate were young citizens of Bern who were in training to be office holders of the Inner Estate of government. The procession is led by the traditional but obscure figure of the ‘Hurispiegel’, whose exaggerated wig, dress and fan satirise the fashions of the eighteenth-century French court. She is followed by the bear, the emblem of Bern, and William Tell, the legendary founder of the Swiss Confederacy, accompanied by Tell’s small son with an apple on his head. Representatives of the Swiss cantons with their allies, a group of musicians and the members of the Outer Estate in black robes make up the procession. The company, which had medieval origins, was dissolved in 1798; its eighteenth-century town hall was restored and opened as a restaurant in 1980.
For further details of the company of the Outer Estate and the 'Hurispiegel', see 1958,0712.2026 and 2027.
The coat of arms underneath is cut out and glued to the paper.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2021, August – December 2021: BM G90a, Enticing Peaks: Swiss prints from the Lloyd collection
- Acquisition date
- 1958
- Acquisition notes
- UNDER THE TERMS OF THE BEQUEST, NONE OF THE PRINTS OR DRAWINGS BEQUEATHED BY R. W. LLOYD MAY BE LENT OUTSIDE THE BRITISH MUSEUM (Registration Numbers 1958,0712.318 to 3149).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1958,0712.2023
- Additional IDs
-
Previous owner/ex-collection number: 939 (Lloyd Number)