Corpus Vitrearum Switzerland: The stained glass in the Canton of Basel-Stadt and its cultural-historical background

The city of Basel was one of the most important centers for stained glass in the Old Confederation. With the founding of the university in 1460, the city had become a stronghold not only of the leading scientific and humanistic scholarship, but also of the arts closely associated with it: printing, graphic arts and painting. As a precious, technically sophisticated and highly representative medium, stained glass held a pre-eminent position in the civic life of the time. Despite the importance of this fragile cultural heritage for Basel and Switzerland, the 500 stained glass paintings from the period between the 14th and 18th centuries have only occasionally been analyzed and published. The project aims to close this gap and to research and publish the stained glass panels located in the territory of the Canton following the guidelines of the international association of the Corpus Vitrearum. In the process, also the approximately 700 stained glass windows from the 19th–21st centuries are to be inventoried. They express the historicist stained glass revival, Art Nouveau and modern artistic forms.

Project duration: 2021–2026