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Glass armonica
Alternate name:Glasharmonika
Alternate name:Harmonica de verre
Date: 1785 ca.
Place Made:France, Europe
Serial No: none
Signednone
DescriptionAs the popularity of playing musical glasses increased during the mid-18th century, Benjamin Franklin, American statesman and inventor, designed a more utilitarian version of the fashionable instrument--the armonica. He had a glassblower make him a set of 36 hemispherical bowls, graduated in size, with a hole in the middle so that they could be placed in a row on a horizontal iron spindle and rotated by a treadle mechanism like that of old-fashioned sewing machines. The Museum's example is equipped with a crank rather than a treadle to rotate the spindle.
Dimensions910 x 1080 x 445 mm (excluding candle holders and crank)
ProvenancePurchased in 1999 from Wolfgang Ruf, Emmetten, Switzerland.
Terms
Credit Line: Rawlins Fund, 1999
Not on view
Published ReferencesKoster, John "A Benjamin Franklin Invention . . . Museum Acquires Rare Glass Armonica Built in 18th-Century France." _America's Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter _27, No. 3 (August 2000): 4-5.
Koster, John. "A Benjamin Franklin Invention . . . Museum Acquires Rare Glass Armonica Built in 18th-Century France." _Glass Music World_ (Spring 2001): 5 and 7.
Koster, John; Margaret Downie Banks; Ana Silva. "Ethereal music making: champagne toasting flutes or tuned musical glasses?" _National Music Museum Newsletter_ 45, no. 1 (Winter 2021): 7,
Larson, André P. _Beethoven & Berlioz, Paris & Vienna: Musical Treasures from the Age of Revolution & Romance 1789-1848_. With essay by John Koster. Exhibition catalog, Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, September 12-November 2, 2003. Vermillion: National Music Museum 2003. Pages 22 and 81.
Larson, André P. "Glass Armonica." _South Dakota Musician_ 35, No. 1 (Fall 2000: cover, 22.
Koster, John. "A Benjamin Franklin Invention . . . Museum Acquires Rare Glass Armonica Built in 18th-Century France." _Glass Music World_ (Spring 2001): 5 and 7.
Koster, John; Margaret Downie Banks; Ana Silva. "Ethereal music making: champagne toasting flutes or tuned musical glasses?" _National Music Museum Newsletter_ 45, no. 1 (Winter 2021): 7,
Larson, André P. _Beethoven & Berlioz, Paris & Vienna: Musical Treasures from the Age of Revolution & Romance 1789-1848_. With essay by John Koster. Exhibition catalog, Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, September 12-November 2, 2003. Vermillion: National Music Museum 2003. Pages 22 and 81.
Larson, André P. "Glass Armonica." _South Dakota Musician_ 35, No. 1 (Fall 2000: cover, 22.
Object number: 06208