Digitised image documents

The NL digitises image documents such as prints, photographs, picture postcards, pictures and plans from the Prints and Drawings Department, the Swiss Literary Archives and the Centre Dürrenmatt in accordance with its principles of digitisation. Some collections are accessible in digital form in their entirety  and in high resolution, others only in part and for illustrative purposes. 

Principles of digitisation

Many freely usable images (public domain works) can be downloaded in high resolution from Wikimedia Commons.

Wikimedia Commons – Image documents of the NL online

Research and access

Database for archives, image documents, literary estates (HelveticArchives)

Online inventory of the pictorial works of Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Photographs and selected other documents from the Daniel Spoerri archive

Posters in the Catalogue of the Association Swiss Poster Collections

Available in high resolution on Wikimedia Commons:

The Gugelmann Collection, prints from the 18th / 19th centuries

Collection of views of places and landscapes (prints)

Pictures of historical military uniforms by Adolf Pochon

Mushroom illustrations by Hans Walty

The Annemarie Schwarzenbach photo collection

Photographs by the picture postcard publisher Wehrli

Photographs by aviation pioneer Eduard Spelterini (late 19th / early 20th centuries)

Series of photos of Swiss buildings by Max van Berchem (late 19th / early 20th centuries)

Original plans for the Zurich main station by Jakob Friedrich Wanner (2nd half of the 19th century)

Photographs from the Rudolf Zinggeler archive: pictures of places and landscapes, people and how they lived (early 20th century)

Last modification 10.03.2025