• Tourism

Thun-Panorma

Good Friday to Easter Monday 10am to 5pm and 1st May to 28th October Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm
Closed on Mondays.
Ascension Day, Whit Sunday and Whit Monday open 10am – 5pm.

A circular painting of the city of Thun around 1810

• The oldest preserved panoramic painting in the world
• Painted by Marquard Wocher (1760-1830)
• Just as Goethe and von Kleist saw it
• Painted on a canvas which measures 7,5 x 39 m 
• Accompanying exhibition and guided tours

This circular painting of the city of Thun around 1810 was painted by Marquard Wocher (1760 - 1830) and is the oldest preserved painting of its kind in the world.

This huge circular painting of Thun was painted between 1809 and 1814 and was donated to Thun by the Basle architect Leonhard Friedrich in 1899. Since then it has been stored in all sorts of places!  This type of painting was first done in Scotland about two decades before but the Wocher Panorama is the only one of its kind to be preserved and also the first Swiss work of its kind.  This huge painting which measures about 7.5m high and 39 m long was painted on paper and then transferred to canvas.  It depicts a panoramic view seen by an observer from the chimney of his house on the upper main street over 180 years ago.

Let your gaze wander over the picturesque roofs and the attractive characteristic buildings with figures livening up the facades and on from the streets of the old town to the church and then up the river to the lake and then to the Niesen and the Blüemlisalp and in the south the Stockhorn chain and its foothills.  The creator of this project which was quite extraordinary at that time was Marquard Wocher, a pupil of Aberli and a friend of the King and one of the best Swiss artists of this era.

The cultural worth of this panoramic painting is exceptional and certainly merits our attention.  Quite apart from its rarity and its significance as the forerunner of later works of this type, it shows excellent artistic qualities, a great interest in general and local history and is a witness to the early developments of tourism in the area.

The circular painting was acquired by the Swiss Gottfried Keller Foundation and was given to the city of Thun for safekeeping.  It has been displayed for the public in a building specially designed to house it since 1961.  The Thun Panorama is administered by the Art Museum Thun