Violin
Maker
Girolamo Amati
Date1609
Place MadeCremona, Italy, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedLabel printed on paper with a handwritten date in ink. Visibly lined texture to paper.Hieronymus Amatus Cremoneñ [blot] / [line] / Andreæ fil. F. I 6 0 9 / [line]
MarkingsPin mark at center of back
DescriptionThis violin is of the smaller Amati model, about a centimeter shorter than the standard violin. It has a noticeably flat top arching combined with more pronounced back arching.
Top: two-piece, quarter-cut spruce: wide grain, widening toward the flanks.
Back: one-piece, semi slab-cut maple: broad curl descending from bas to treble single maple pins into top & bottom blocks- latter pin through button
Ribs: slab-cut maple: faint, irregular, broad curl- one piece lower rib filled semi circular cutout from saddle
Head and neck: maple: medium curl, grafted, plain maple, spine ends at first turn
Arching: low on top
Varnish: medium orange-brown
Fingerboard: ebony, later
Nut: ebony, later
Tailpiece: ebony- early 19th c, no saddle- incised line around edge tailgut on top, beveled end
Tailgut: red gut
Pegs: four, varnished dark brown hard wood with double incised lines on edges of heads- early 19th c.
Saddle: ebony, later
Endpin: ebony with three incised lines, later
F-holes: chamfered wings, notch corners rounded
Linings: willow, original
Corner blocks: spruce, original
Top block: spruce, later
Bottom block: probably bass wood, late
DimensionsTotal violin length: 572 mm
Back length: 341 mm
Upper bout width: 156 mm
Center bout width: 105 mm
Lower bout width: 193 mm
Upper rib height: 27-28 mm
Center rib height: 27-29 mm
Lower rib height: 28-29 mm
Stop length: 191 mm
Vibrating string length: 322 mm
Neck length (bottom of nut to ribs): 131 mm
ProvenanceBelonged ca. 1800 to the Milanese writer on economics Pietro Verri, and later the noble Melzi family. Exhibited at Cremona in the Stradivari bicentennial, 1937 as the property of the Contessa Emilia Laura Melzi and Lady Laura Parrochetti Melzi. Aquired [by Witten] from the estate of Andrea Bisiach, [Venegono Superiore, Italy] 1968.” - according to Laurence Witten.
Purchased by the National Music Museum from Laurence Witten family, New Haven, Connecticut, 1984.
Published ReferencesAndré 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.
Credit LineWitten-Rawlins Collection, 1984
Object number03364
On View
Not on view
