A Monumental Swiss Silver Model of the Medieval Fortified City of Lucerne, Carl Thomas Bossard, Lucerne, Circa 1910

John Wannamaker, Philadelphia, 1838-1922, department store entrepreneur and collector

This is a detailed representation of the Museggmauer, the 870 meter wall built in the 14^th century that still surrounds the core of the city of Lucerne. Bossard has used five of the nine towers. He models the Manli tower topped by a figure of a soldier; the Zyt clock tower, which retains its 16^th century clock striking 1 minute before the other town clocks; the Nolli circular tower; the Schirmer gate tower with drawbridge; the Heu tower, destroyed in 1701 by a lightning strike and rebuilt; and the Luegisland tower with five turret roof. He has added a stork’s nest to one roof top.

Carl Thomas Bossard continued the historicist traditions of his father, Karl 1846-1914, making vessels in earlier, often medieval, or Renaissance style. Examples can be found in Alain Gruber, Weltiches Silber, 1977, catalogue of the Landesmuseums, Zurich, including three silver and rock crystal standing cups, nos. 157-159.

Sotheby’s is grateful to Hanspeter Lanz for informing us of a photograph in the Bossard Studio Estate showing the castle with the notation that this was delivered to John Wanamaker before the First World War.