Images(26)

Viola d'amore

Maker Giovanni Grancino

Date1693

Place MadeMilan, Italy, Europe

SignedPrinted on paper label, the last two digits of year written in ink that has faded to orange: Giouanni Grancino in Contrada / Largha di Milano al ſegno. / della Corona 1693
MarkingsStamped in base of pegbox interior: 2088

Branded on bridge toward neck: M.YURKEVITCH
DescriptionThis fanciful instrument may be an early form of viola d'amore. In addition to the more famous eighteenth century models with metal sympathetic strings running under the fingerboard, versions of the instrument influenced by the Hamburg style may have had only five bowed strings. Two other Grancino instruments of this design survive, another of this dimension in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and a viola in the Museum of Musical Instruments in Milan.

5 bowed strings
festooned outline
Top: two-piece, quarter-cut spruce: very fine grain broadening to medium at the edges
Back: two-piece, slab-cut maple: plain; joint not centered with body outline
Ribs: slab-cut maple: plain; saw marks visible on outside
Head and neck: maple: plain; slightly reangled at the heel; back of pegbox not fluted
Varnish: dark orange-brown with cracquelure
Fingerboard: ebony-veneered black-painted spruce; tapered
Nut: bone
Tailpiece: ebony; later
Tailgut: black gut; later
Pegs: five medium brown hardwood; concave head faces; later
Saddle: ebony; extends into upper rib; later
Endpin: dark red-brown hardwood
F-holes: curved, tapered wings
Linings: none; linen linings at lower inverted corners
Corner blocks: spruce upper
Top block: willow or poplar; three iron nails through top block into neck heel
Bottom block: willow or poplar; narrow
Bassbar: spruce; possibly later

DimensionsTotal viola d'amore length: 595 mm
Back length: 365 mm
Upper bout width: 185 mm
Center bout width: 116 mm
Lower bout width: 216 mm
Upper rib height: 29-32 mm
Center rib height: 29-32 mm
Lower rib height: 29-32 mm
Stop length: 216 mm
Vibrating string length: 345 mm
Neck length (bottom of nut to ribs): 131 mm (current, possibly 122 originally)

ProvenanceFrom the Salzer Collection, Vienna, acquired by Laurence Witten from Emil Herrmann in 1962.
Purchased by the National Music Museum from Laurence Witten family, New Haven, Connecticut, 1984.
Published References"Witten Collection Acquired," Shrine to Music Museum, Inc., Newsletter 11, No. 3 (April 1984), pp. 1-4.

Roger Hargrave, "Preservation Order," The Strad 96, No. 1142 (June 1985), p. 128.

Roger Hargrave, “Instrument Recognition,” Journal of the VSA, Vol. XIII, No. 1, pp. 35-123 (p.45, 42).

André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 17 and inside cover.

Credit LineWitten-Rawlins Collection, 1984

Object number03353

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