Notes from a drawing class in Langnau, c. 1909-1912, private ownership Langnau.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Gewerbemuseum (museum of commerce) in Bern made great efforts to provide training and further education courses for the potters in Heimberg-Steffisburg and Langnau in the Canton of Bern, be it by setting up pottery schools or courses or by offering drawing classes (for a summary see Blom 1908). Two series of sketches have survived from these classes and appear to be “course notes” of some kind. Students seem to have drawn and painted the lessons onto these sheets in class, so that they could take them home and put them into practice in their own workshops. The first class probably pertains to the course in Steffisburg (drawing class taught by Paul Wyss and Friedrich Ernst Frank). The second class was found in the estate archive of the Röthlisberger pottery in Langnau.
Translation Sandy Haemmerle
References:
Blom 1908
Oscar Blom, Die Förderung der Majolika-Industrie in Heimberg-Steffisburg-Thun durch das kantonale Gewerbe-Museum in Bern, in: Jahresbericht pro 1907 des kantonalen Gewerbemuseums Bern, 1908, 1-9.
