Switzerland— Tattoo scenes & cities

In Switzerland, tattooing reportedly reached Basel with sailors on the Rhine, according to the journalist Clément Grandjean, author of a book on the subject. In the Museum of Anatomy in Basel, he saw late 19th-century tattooed skin samples bearing typically Swiss motifs: the crosier of the Basel flag, a milking scene, an Helvetia.

The modern scene owes much to a family of pioneers from the contemporary art world, settled in Lausanne in the 1970s, whose family studio is now in Sainte-Croix. According to Grandjean, they were among the first to wear gloves and disinfect needles. There is no "Swiss school" of tattooing; the author rather sees the country's hallmark in technical mastery.