What do Voltaire, Jacques Necker, Joseph Bonaparte and Katharine McCormick have in common? All of them lived or spent time at Château de Prangins. Portrait gallery, the new permanent exhibition at Château de Prangins – Swiss National Museum, brings these voices from the past to life in the large corridor on the first floor, in an interactive and immersive exhibition which opens on 16 June 2023. The vernissage is free of charge and will take place on Thursday 15 June, as of 18.30.

“Good day. Do you recognise me? For the avoidance of doubt, allow me to present myself: François-Marie Arouet! Better known as Voltaire, writer and philosopher. Come over to the window, if you please, and take a seat in this comfortable armchair! I’ll tell you what I am doing at Château de Prangins!” Voices suddenly emerge from an armchair, a telephone or a door in the long gallery. They all belong to someone who lived for varying periods at Château de Prangins. Simply take a seat, open a drawer or a panel to listen to life stories and anecdotes that take you back in time. 

Portrait gallery is an interactive, immersive exhibition featuring snippets of 18th-century history re-enacted in the present day, triggered by our curiosity and chance encounters – just like the random meetings between those who used to stretch their legs in this large space. “Historically, in a stately home, the gallery linked various wings together, explains Helen Bieri Thomson, Director of the museum and curator of this exhibition. It was an area that people passed through, but it was also somewhere to exercise when the weather was bad and they couldn’t go outside. And since it was a room that everyone had to visit, it was used to hang important pictures, often family portraits.”

Portrait gallery stays true to these historical precedents. There are pictures on the walls and, facing them, some black, almost unreal and fantastical furniture. Here we meet the grumpy figure of Voltaire, complaining about the cold. We discover Katharine McCormick, the philanthropic biologist who battled for women’s rights – notably control over their own bodies – by actively funding research into the contraceptive pill. Joseph Bonaparte whispers at us from behind a door as he prepares to flee the château. Jacques Necker, Louis XVI’s finance minister, is also present. A bust of him and one of his outfits complement the display. A little further on, William Beckford, the richest young man in England at the end of the 18th century, recounts his exploits. Bernie Cornfeld, the last owner of the property for just a few months before his sensational bankruptcy, also has his say. And is that a child’s voice we hear by the theatre? Yes: it’s young Charles-Jules Guiguer, the last Baron Guiguer of Prangins. We discover the Moravian Institute, when the château was a boys’ boarding school, and bring things up to date with an explanation of how it became part of the Swiss National Museum.