Albert Anker (1831-1910)

Albrecht Samuel Anker was a Swiss painter and illustrator who has been called the “national painter” of Switzerland because of his enduringly popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss village life.

Anker attended school in Neuchâtel, where he and Auguste Bachelin, later a fellow artist, took early drawing lessons with Louis Wallinger in 1845–48. In 1849–51, he attended the Gymnasium Kirchenfeld  in Bern, graduating with the Matura. 

Afterwards, he studied theology, beginning in 1851 in Bern and continuing at the university of Halle, Germany. But in Germany he was inspired by the great art collections, and in 1854 he convinced his father to agree to an artistic career.

Anker moved to Paris, where he studied with Charles Gleyre and attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1855–60. He installed a studio in the attic of his parents’ house and participated regularly in exhibitions in Switzerland and in Paris.