Mandolino coristo
Alternate name(s)
- Choral mandolin
Maker
Antonio Stradivari
Date1680
Place MadeCremona, Italy, Europe
Modelchoral mandolino
Serial No.none
SignedWritten in black ink on inside of center rib: Antonio Stradiuario / in Cremona i680DescriptionThis small mandolin is one of two surviving from the Stradivari workshop. Several patterns relating to mandolin construction survive in the Museo del Violino in Cremona. The current peghead is modeled after one of those patterns, since the original was lost, though the original neck survives.
Technical drawing available for purchase.
Stringing: five double courses
Soundboard: one-piece quarter-cut spruce: wide grain; heavy playing wear; top extends 15 mm onto neck
Bowl: 7 quarter-cut maple staves with very narrow, prominent curl, divided by bog oak strips
Clasp: quarter-cut maple with very narrow, prominent curl
Head: pearwood with shield-shaped head; later by Andrew Dipper
Neck: poplar or willow; original
Binding: ebony
Fingerboard: bog oak bound in bone
Nut: bone; later by Andrew Dipper
Bridge: dark-brown stained maple tie bridge
Tuners: 10 red-brown hardwood with integral pins; later, by Andrew Dipper
Rose: four-layer pearwood veneer; reconstructed by Andrew Dipper
Rosette: faded purfling; set in from edge; edge of soundhole chamfered
Varnish: golden on back
Endpin: none
Bowl lining: recycled paper with writing in black ink; original
DimensionsTotal mandolin coristo length: 501.9 mm
Top length: 198.3 mm
Maximum body width: 111 mm
Maximum bowl height: 56.2 mm
Head length: 148 mm
Head width, top: 24.7 mm
Head width, bottom: 38.4 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 156 mm
Neck width, nut: 40.2 mm
Neck width, heel: 46.3 mm
Soundhole diameter: 52.5 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 315.8 mm
ProvenancePurchased in 1997 from Claire Givens Violins, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota. Previously owned by Christopher Challen, Horsley-Stroud, Gloucestershire, England.
Published ReferencesArticle: Kyle MacMillan, "State of Being: Restoration or Conservation?," Early Music America 30, No. 3 (September 2024), p. 21. (image)
NMM catalog: _As Good as Gold: The First 50 Years (1973-2023)_. Vermillion, SD: National Music Museum, 2023. (pp. 51, 58-59)
James Tyler, “The Italian Mandolin and Mandola 1589-1800,” Early Music 9, No. 4, Plucked-String Issue 2. (Oct., 1981), p 440.
Andrew Dipper, "The Geometric Construction of the Violin Forms of Antonio Stradivari," Journal of the Violin Society of America 10, No. 2 (1988), pp. 163-198.
James Tyler and Paul Sparks, Early Mandolin: Mandolino and the Neapolitan Mandoline (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 168.
André P. Larson, “Celebrating Our First 25 Years . . . 25th Anniversary to be Observed with Special Events,” America’s Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 25, No. 3 (May 1998), pp. 1-2.
André P. Larson, “One of Only Two Known to Survive . . . Museum Adds Rare 1680 Mandolin by Antonio Stradivari,” America’s Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 25, No. 2 (February 1998), pp. 1-3.
André P. Larson, "Choral Mandolino," South Dakota Musician 33, No. 1 (Fall 1998), cover and p. 19.
André P. Larson, 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), p. 68.
Stewart Pollens, Stradivari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 189-190.
Panagiotis Poulopoulos, The Guittar in the British Isles 1750-1810, Ph.D. Dissertation (Edinburgh, The University of Edinbught, 2011) p. 60.
Technical Drawings
Credit LinePurchase funds gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard A. Cutler, 1997
Object number06045
On View
Not on view
