• Address

    Abegg-Stiftung, Werner Abeggstrasse 67, Postfach, CH-3132 Riggisberg, Switzerland, Telephone: 0041 (0)31 808 12 01, Fax: 0041 (0)31 808 12 00, info@abegg-stiftung.ch

    Opening hours

    Closed during winter

    Permanent and special exhibition

    28 April to 10 November 2024, daily from 2 pm to 5.30 pm

    Villa Abegg

    28 April to 10 November 2024, daily in the afternoon, advance reservation by telephone recommended

    Getting here by car

    Motorway A6, exit Rubigen/Belp, free car park available

    Getting here by public transport

    Regional train to Toffen, postbus from Toffen to Riggisberg

Sixteenth-Century Painted Leather Pouches for Archiving Documents Exhibition closed

During his term of office from 1579 to 1593, Fribourg’s state chancellor Wilhelm Techtermann had some fifty elaborately worked leather pouches made in which to archive important documents and deeds. Fourteen of these little bags have been preserved in the Archives de l’État de Fribourg and were recently studied and conserved at the Abegg-Stiftung as part of a degree project by a student of textile conservation and restoration. Six of these remarkable pouches and some documents they once contained are now on show at the Abegg-Stiftung. Media Release | Poster Master’s Thesis

 

 

Pouch for the Deed of the Golden League

This leather pouch is painted with coats of arms arranged in a circle around a white dove with a golden nimbus. The coats of arms (read clockwise from top centre) are those of the cantons Fribourg, Uri, Unterwalden, Solothurn, Zug, Schwyz, and Lucerne. Below the coats of arms is a banderole containing the inscription “Catholischer Pünd der 7 Orte” (lit. “Catholic league of the 7 cantons”). The pouch contained the deed of the Golden League, an alliance of the seven Catholic cantons agreed in Lucerne on 5 October 1586. |  Fribourg, 1587; painted leather, leather drawstrings and ornamental knots, silk fringed border and tassels, 38 x 31 cm; Archives de l’État de Fribourg, bourses d’archives, 10

Deed of the Golden League

This magnificent document was drawn up on a rectangular sheet of parchment measuring 64 x 53 cm. The visible creases indicate that it was folded to make it fit inside the leather pouch. The deed still possesses five of the seven wax seals it had originally, one of which is kept inside a wooden seal case to protect it. The seals are suspended on cords in the colours of each canton. |  Deed of the Golden League, 1586; parchment, painted; Archives de l’État de Fribourg, traités et contracts, 16a

Pouch Bearing the Coat of Arms of the Lords of Neuchâtel and That of Fribourg

Above the coat of arms is a banderole containing the inscription: “Burgrecht mit de(n) Grafen vo(n) Nüwe(n)burg” (lit. “Burgrecht with the lords of Neuchâtel”), underneath which is the smaller, barely legible, marking: “D 63 … No 70”. The coat of arms, markings, and label on the back of the bag allowed the original contents to be deduced. The archiving pouch once contained eight folded deeds, all of which have likewise survived. The two oldest ones date from the year 1290. |  Fribourg, 1586; painted leather, leather drawstrings and ornamental knots, silk fringed border and tassels, 46.5 x 32 cm; Archives de l’État de Fribourg, bourses d’archives, 6

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