The source image
The badge is drawn, not photographed. Each drawing works from a reference image in the public domain or under a free licence — a photochrom print, a photograph, an etching. Here is the one used for this destination, and why it was chosen.
The drawing follows a photochrom print of about 1890-1900 from the Photochrom Print Collection, held by the Library of Congress. It shows the Limmat between its embankments, with the spires: the view that makes Zurich. A photochrom already works in flat areas of colour, so the travel-poster look is native to it. The band carries 1218, the year Zurich became a free imperial city on the extinction of the Zähringen line. The two towers on the Limmat do not belong to the same building: the Grossmünster stands on the right bank, the Fraumünster on the left, and it is their facing pair that makes the view. The drawing keeps both, for without them the city would merge with any other town on a river.
From Peter Church, with Fraumünster and Alpenkette, Zurich, Switzerland
- Held by
- Library of Congress, Photochrom Print Collection, v. 1890-1900
- Shelf mark
- LCCN2001703359
- Licence
- Public domain
View the original
consulted 2026-08-13
