| Creator | Peter Balzer (drawing) |
| Printing year | 1894 |
| Sheet size (cm) | 94×63 |
| Printing technique | Lithograph |
| Printer | Art. Institut Orell Füssli, Zürich |
| Condition | A- |
| Asking price | 2'700 CHF |
| Categories | over the water, Switzerland, Zurich |
The Dampf-Schwalben (“steam swallows”) were around 14-metre-long screw steamers which, from 1892 onwards, served Wollishofen and Tiefenbrunnen as well as Küsnacht and Thalwil from Zurich’s Rathaus bridge, thus ensuring a tram-like local service across Lake Zurich.
The Zürcher Dampfboot-Aktien-Gesellschaft (today’s Zürichsee Schifffahrtsgesellschaft), founded in 1890, was so successful – only a few years earlier the booming railway threatened to make the steamboats, which operated without a central organisation, superfluous – that it commissioned larger ships as early as 1895. Soon after, the spirit of the Belle Epoque arrived and travel became en vogue and an experience. A rare piece of local history.