The Pensive One (Anna Seiler Memorial)

History of the work

In the garden west of the Wilhelm-Fabry-Haus on the Engländerhubel stands a female figure in bronze on a base of shell limestone. It is titled 'Die Sinnende' (The Pensive One) and is also known as the Anna Seiler memorial. It is the work of the Bernese sculptor Eleonore von Mülinen.

In her will of 1354 Anna Seiler founded a hospital for thirteen bedridden and needy people in today's Zeughausgasse. After the Reformation it moved in 1528 into the former Dominican convent of St Michael 'in der Insel' (on the island), which gave it its name; in 1881–1884 it moved to the Kreuzmatte. According to a leaflet published by the Inselspital, the statue is meant to express thanks to all the women trained here who work for the sick as doctors, nurses or laboratory staff, and at the same time to commemorate the founder. A woman doctor gave the figure to the hospital.

The dates disagree. The city of Bern gives 1918 as the year it was made, Wikimedia Commons speaks of an inauguration in 1970, and the leaflet dates the gift to 1975. Both later dates fall after the artist's death. The building behind was built in 1951–1953 to designs by Otto Brechbühl as the Anna-Seiler-Haus. Because the hospital's new main building took over Anna Seiler's name, it has been called the Wilhelm-Fabry-Haus since 2022, after the surgeon who settled in Bern as city physician in 1615.

According to SIKART, Eleonore von Mülinen was born in Bern on 22 August 1893 and died in Köniz on 26 October 1967; the Inselspital leaflet gives Basel as her birthplace. SIKART lists her as a sculptor of portrait busts, nudes and funerary sculpture. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland mentions her in its article on her family as a niece of the women's rights campaigner Helene von Mülinen and as a sculptor in Paris.

The garden in which the figure stands was designed by the landscape architect Franz Vogel senior and has remained unchanged since it was completed in 1954. It includes an angled wall of hard sandstone and a kidney-shaped water-lily pond.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART: Eleonore von Mülinen · Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz: von Mülinen (Familie) · Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz: Seiler, Anna (Kathrin Utz Tremp) · Inselspital, Direktion Infrastruktur: Flyer Inselpark (2018) · Insel Gruppe: Medienmitteilung zu den Gebäudenamen auf dem Insel-Areal (28. März 2022) · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Freiburgstrasse 41C (Anna-Seiler-Haus, heute Freiburgstrasse 37) · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Baugruppe Loryspital · Wikimedia Commons: Bronzeplastik Die Sinnende (Eleonore von Mülinen 1970)