The crib is the creation of the Solothurn nunnery St. Joseph, which was founded during the middle of the 18th century.

Each figure has an incredibly lifelike wax head with individual facial features, real hair and carefully worked glass eyes. The wooden bodies equipped with elaborate joints can move freely. The rich clothes endowing the figures with their baroque splendour were restored in the 1920s by Emilie Gunzinger and in the 1950s by Sister Clara using historic parament fabrics.