Origins
Technical Execution (1)
An inscription on the panorama canvas states that work began on 25 September 1893 and was completed on 25 July 1894. In other words, nine months for a gigantic panorama measuring 94.4 m by 10.5 m!
Louis Braun did not work alone. He was aided by a group of experienced painters and skilled workers. The names of the artists Edmund Berninger (landscapes) and Josef Krieger (skies) have been preserved. Braun was in charge of the overall management and, as an experienced equine painter, painted most of the horses. Josef Krieger was responsible for the skies (or the air) and Edmund Berninger for the landscapes. It appears that the artists Hoffmann and Jourdan were hired to paint the figures and groups of figures in the foreground and middle ground. Some eight to ten people in total must have been at work more or less simultaneously.
Given that the painting was created under the same conditions as its subsequent exhibition, Louis Braun’s studio consisted of a rotunda the size of the planned Zurich pavilion.
First, Braun drew up the complete draft on the inside of an upright cylinder on a scale of 1 to 10, i.e. 1.05 m in height and 9.5 m in circumference or 3 m in diameter. For this, he used all the historical information he could get about the battle, as well as drawings, paintings and photographs of the landscape, and all the detailed sketches he had prepared.
