Violin
Date1600-1700 ca.
Place MadeFrance, Europe
Place MadeItaly, Europe
SignedPrinted on later paper label with cut corners: Andrea Amati in / Cremonae M.D.LXXII.DescriptionThis violin, while not Cremonese, shows a clear attempt to imitate the model of Andrea Amati. Following the popularization of Amati's instruments by the French royal court in the sixteenth century, the Amati model was imitated in France and England.
Top: one-piece, quarter-cut spruce: fine grain
Back: one-piece, slab-cut maple: wide, irregular curl; two maple pins through back into top block, one smaller than other; large maple pin through back into bottom block; later button
Ribs: quarter-cut maple: narrow curl; lower rib divided by later purfling strip; once fitted with saddle that extended into lower rib
Head: missing
Neck: narrow curl; later
Varnish: medium orange-brown
Fingerboard: ebony; later
Nut: ebony; later
Saddle: ebony; later
Endpin: red-brown hardwood with varigated color; later
F-holes: narrow wings; rounded notches
Linings: willow or poplar
Corner blocks: spruce
Top block: willow or poplar; later
Bottom block: spruce
Bassbar: spruce; later
DimensionsTotal violin length (without pegbox and scroll): 492 mm
Back length: 356 mm
Upper bout width: 159 mm
Center bout width: 108 mm
Lower bout width: 189 mm
Upper rib height: 28-30 mm
Center rib height: 29-30 mm
Lower rib height: 29-30 mm
Stop length: 187 mm
Vibrating string length: 132 mm
Neck length (bottom of nut to ribs): 324 mm
ProvenanceFormerly in the Harry Wahl Collection, Finland, acquired from Emil Herrmann, Stepney, CT, by Laurence Witten, 1964.
Purchased by the National Music Museum from Laurence Witten family, New Haven, Connecticut, 1984.
Published ReferencesLaurence C. Witten II, “The Surviving Instruments of Andrea Amati,” Early Music, Vol. 10, No. 4 (October 1982), p. 489.
Greg Dean Petersen, "Bridge location on the early Italian violin," Early Music 35, No. 1 (February 2007), pp. 49-64.
Greg Dean Petersen, The Location of the Bridge in the Early Baroque Italian Violin: A Visual Study of Selected Instruments and Paintings, MM thesis, Brigham Young
University, 1995.
Credit LineWitten-Rawlins Collection, 1984
Object number03413
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