Violin
Maker
Nicolo Amati
Date1628
Place MadeCremona, Italy, Europe
ModelGrand pattern
SignedPrinted paper label, year in black ink: Antonius, & Hieronymus Fr. Amati / Cremoneñ. Andreæ fil. F. i628DescriptionNicolo Amati accelerated the evolution of the Amati family model in a way that had a lasting impact on subsequent violin making and design. This early example of his work still bears the label of the brothers Amati, but is fully Nicolo's work.
Top: two-piece, quarter-cut spruce: fine grain broadening then narrowing at the flanks, knots in upper & lower treble bouts
Back: two-piece, quarter-cut maple: narrow horizontal curl faint, wide grain small maple pins through blocks, bottom under purfling, later ebony cap on button
Ribs: quarter-cut maple: narrow curl angle toward bass. 2 piece lower rib. Faint narrow curl
Head and neck: maple: medium curl
Arching: high, full arching
Edging: deeply scooped inside purfling
Purfling: very dark outer strips
Decoration:
Varnish: golden
Fingerboard: ebony, later
Nut: ebony, later
Tailpiece: beveled boxwood with ebony saddle, later
Tailgut: black plastic
Pegs: brown-sanded boxwood hills with ebony collars and pins, later
Saddle: ebony, narrow, triangular extension with concave sides and rounded end
Endpin: extends into rib, later
F-holes: fluted, curved wings, tapered with rounded c notch corners inside edges
Linings: willow, wide-burn marks, possible later
Corner blocks: willow, gouge marks, fine
Top block: willow- four nail holes- original
Bottom block: willow possibly original, gouge marks, fine
Bassbar: low height
DimensionsTotal violin length: 587 mm
Back length: 353 mm
Upper bout width: 168 mm
Center bout width: 107 mm
Lower bout width: 206 mm
Upper rib height: 28-30 mm
Center rib height: 29-30 mm
Lower rib height: 29-30 mm
Stop length: 197 mm
Vibrating string length: 328 mm
Neck length (bottom of nut to ribs): 133 mm
ProvenanceFormerly in following collections: C. J. Read, Salisbury, Miss E. A. Wilmott, William MacNeil Rodewald
Laurence Witten purchased from Jaques Français, New York City, 1968.
Purchased by the National Music Museum from Laurence Witten family, New Haven, Connecticut, 1984.
Published ReferencesAn Illustrated Catalogue of the Music Loan Exhibition Held . . . by the Worshipful Company of Musicians of Fishmongers' Hall, June and July 1904 (London: Novello and Co., Ltd., 1909), p. 153.
"Witten Collection Acquired," Shrine to Music Museum, Inc., Newsletter 11, No. 3 (April 1984), p. 4.
Roger Hargrave, "Preservation Order," The Strad 96, No. 1142 (June 1985), pp. 125-127.
Margaret Downie Banks, "The Witten-Rawlins Collection and Other Early Italian Stringed Instruments at The Shrine to Music Museum," Journal of the Violin Society of America 8, No. 3 (1987), pp. 35-36.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), pp. 17 and 49.
Margaret Downie Banks, "The Violino Piccolo and Other Small Violins," Early Music 18, No. 4 (November 1990), pp. 588-590.
Robin Stowell, The Early Violin and Viola (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 173.
André Larson, “Three Great Violins From the Witten-Rawlins Collection Will Go Home to Cremona, but Only For a Short Visit!,” National Music Museum Newsletter 33, No. 3 (August 2006), pp.4-5.
Greg Dean Petersen, "Bridge location on the early Italian violin," Early Music 35, No. 1 (February 2007), pp. 49-64.
Technical Drawings
Credit LineWitten-Rawlins Collection, 1984
Object number03356
On View
Not on view
