A House for the Impressionists

Villa Langmatt in Baden is one of the prime gems among Swiss private collections open to the public. In 1908, Sidney and Jenny Brown began to assemble the collection, the first Impressionist grouping in Switzerland, and today the results of their astute, sensitive collecting are presented in the original domestic environment in which the Browns lived with their beloved Impressionist masterpieces. Works by Camille Corot and Eugene Boudin stand as preliminary pictures, followed by treasures from Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, as well as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. Also featured are pieces by Gustave Courbet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Odilon Redon and Mary Cassatt. The collection is rounded off with a few eighteenth-century canvases. A Home for the Impressionists presents the complete group of paintings in the Sidney and Jenny Brown collection, as well as a selection of applied art objects, including furniture, silver, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century porcelain and Asiatica. Each catalogued work is detailed by a contributing art historian. Essays discuss the history of the collection, the architecture of the villa, which was designed by Karl Mose, and the gardens, which were laid out by Otto Froebel.