A glimpse on a historical diorama - The diorama of ‘Storming the Tuileries Palace’

At the beginning of 2017 there was a short chance to take a look at one of the few surviving historical diorama paintings: The diorama of ‘Storming the Tuileries Palace’ was laid flat on the ground and photographed. The original dimensions of the painting are 5 x 17 meters. The central part still exists today. It measures 5 x 10 meters.

The diorama was painted in 1889 by Munich based painters L. Bang and O. Lorch. From 1889 to 1892 it was exhibited in the ‘Lion Monument Museum’ in Lucerne / Switzerland. This museum was a popular tourist attraction close to Lucerne’s Lion Monument which commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris / France.

This museum was transformed in 1892 into the still existing Alpineum museum. The diorama of the Storm on the Tuileries Palace was replaced by dioramas of mountains and stored for decades.

The diorama was presented in 1993 in a changing exhibition of the Historical Museum of Lucerne. In 2015 it was then shown for a few days in the Kunsthalle Lucerne.

After the current photographic shooting action in early 2017 the painting was re-rolled conservatively correct and stored again.