The uniform that Charlie Chaplin wore in the film “The Great Dictator” was stored in a cardboard box in the Sulzer high-rise in Winterthur for decades.
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Chaplin uniform from “The Great Dictator” appeared in Winterthur
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During the cleaning and registration of the estimated 80,000 objects of the deceased art collector Bruno Stefanini, the Chaplin uniform from the film “The Great Dictator” recently appeared.
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It’s hard work like no other. The processing, cleaning and registration of the around 80,000 works that Bruno Stefanini, who died in 2018, collected in his life now employs 32 people. As is well known, the real estate entrepreneur and passionate art collector did not take it very carefully when storing his objects, and it takes good knowledge to distinguish art and valuable devotional objects from bought-up junk in the sprawling estate. The treasure hunt in the Stefanini estate and the inventory continue to advance. In spring 2021, 60,000 collector’s items will be cleaned and registered, and all 80,000 in mid-2023.
The motivation of the employees of the Foundation Art, Culture and History (SKKG) seems unbroken. Time and again they make spectacular discoveries: two years ago, for example, original sketches by the author and aviation pioneer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for his “Petit Prince”, a find that was reported in titles all over the world after this newspaper.
Wrong Hitler uniform
Managing director Christoph Lichtin is not embarrassed by the question of exciting recent finds. “We recently found Charlie Chaplin’s uniform from the film ‘The Great Dictator’,” he says. However, it was known that it was being supplied somewhere. It was found in one of the hundred boxes that were originally stored in the Sulzer high-rise, the Winterthur landmark that Stefanini bought in 1998.
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Bitterly angry attitude towards good acting: For his satire “The Great Dictator”, Charlie Chaplin meticulously studied the gestures and facial expressions of Adolf Hitler.
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Less rare, but a discovery are two Japanese flags from the Second World War that relatives gave the soldiers with them. It is assumed that American soldiers took the flags with them as spoils of war, says Lichtin. In Japan such so-called “Good Luck Flags” are traditionally found in shrines.
Loans all over the world
Once the objects have been cleaned and registered, they will be packed ready for transport in order to move to the new SKKG headquarters in Neuhegi in 2026. The foundation is planning a collection center with a showroom and public events on the Zum-Park site there.
But not all works collected by Stefanini will remain in storage until 2026. The SKKG circulates valuable items on loan; the loan was already doubled last year and plans to promote them even more. From spring onwards, a new employee will take care of it alone. There are currently around 60 works on loan, spread across around 15 museums, not only in Switzerland, but also in Europe and the USA.
But they also want to expand the brokerage through the collection, says Lichtin. The foundation is working on a project with the Zurich University of the Arts: students write texts about the works and their backgrounds. The foundation also wants to improve the website. And then Lichtin mentions another special find – the circus model, which is also described in the Winterthur yearbook. “I hope that it can go on tour soon.”
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