Violoncello

Date1822/04/10

Place MadeDeerfield, New Hampshire, United States, North America

Serial No.23

SignedLocated on linen label glued onto the interior of the back of the instrument, handwritten in ink (transcribed by John Koster): No. 23 / Made by Prescott / for F. D. Randall / Deerfield April 10 / 1822
MarkingsHandwritten in pencil directly on a wooden repair patch located on the interior of the back of the instrument:
Repared [sic] by / M. Pierce & D [?] Spence 1968 / Lincoln, Neb,
Written in pencil directly on the interior of the back of the instrument, visible through the bass soundhole: - #13
DescriptionA four-stringed, cello-sized instrument with wooden pegs. Two-piece back with the flame descending slightly downwards from the center. Two-piece belly with an uneven grain narrowing towards the center. Distinct craquelure evident in the varnish over the entire body of the instrument. There is not purfling, but both the front and the back are decorated around the edges with an inked S-shaped design (four inked Xs interrupt the design at the back / neck juncture). The corners are very pointed, the f-holes are very rounded, and are quite exaggerated at their lower end (they are not joined at the top and bottom, as is sometimes the case with Yankee bass viols). The interior of the instrument is fully lined, a feature which Eric Selch suggests in his Violin Society of America article (1976), was not a method commonly used in the construction of Yankee bass viols. This suggests that it may have been a later addition when the instrument was repaired in 1968. The interior corners are all blocked. The neck and scroll are not original to the instrument.
Published References“Recent Acquisitions,” America’s Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 28, No. 2 (May 2001), p. 3.

Credit LineGift of Priscilla Parson, 2000

Object number09949

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