Guitar
Maker
Antonio Stradivari
Date1700
Place MadeCremona, Italy, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedCarved and filled in with black mastic on back of head: ANT: [superscript] s STRADIVARIVS / CREMONEN: [superscript] s F.1700.DescriptionThe Rawlins Stradivari guitar is one of five such instruments surviving. It is of a different model than most Italian guitars, and likely reflects Stradivari's interpretation of the Spanish tradition. Unlike instruments of the Venetian school, made from multiple strips of wood, this guitar is made of figured maple and varnished much like a violin. It has a rather longer-than usual string length, setting it apart from Italian instruments of the previous century.
Technical drawing available for purchase.
Stringing: five double courses
Top: two-piece spruce: medium grain, wood of top extends 43 mm over neck; inlaide ebony point with concave sides inlaid into top at lower bout
Back: two-piece, quarter-cut maple with broad curl descending from center joint, divided by wide purfling strip
Ribs: quarter-cut maple with broad curl angled to left, divided at bottom joint with wide purfling strip; maple pins in ribs just to upper bout side of center for pining to form
Head: poplar or willow, veneered on back with ebony and maple, veneered on front with ebony, with later center panel of bone and bog oak in alternating strips, with single bone strips inlaid outside pegs; with festooned outline; hole drilled at upper and lower ends of head, visible from back and filled with maple
Neck: veneered with ebony and bone strips
Frets: 14 later ebony frets inlaid into fingerboard and top; these do not correspond to the scale length of the guitar, so it is not playable in this configuration
Fingerboard: ebony; flush with soundboard
Nut: bone
Bridge: brown-stained maple tie bridge with bone and ivory diamond-and-dot inlay set into black mastic, surrounded with 3-ply light and dark hardwood strips; later
Pegs: 10 red-brown hardwood; later
End button: decoratively turned ivory, probably later
Rose: three layer dark-brown-stained hardwood and parchment rose; not original to the instrument, but perhaps from a harpsichord, installed by the Hills
Rosette: bone diamond-and-dot inlay set in black mastic surrounded by narrow purfling strips on each side, set in from edge, which is bevelled
Binding: ebony with purfling trim on top, none on back
Varnish: medium orange brown on back and sides
Top braces: Three ladder braces; two diagonal supports at soundhole to ribs
Back braces: three tapered spruce, one each at upper, center and lower bouts; maple graft along center joint
Linings: very wide poplar or willow
Top block: poplar or willow
DimensionsTotal guitar length: 912 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 640 mm
Back length: 442.5 mm
Upper bout width: 213 mm
Waist width: 171.2 mm
Lower bout width: 269.2 mm
Rib height (including edging), heel: 84 mm
Rib height, waist: 95 mm
Rib height, end block: 93.7 mm
Head length: 181 mm
Head width, top: 71.4 mm
Head width, bottom: 56 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 292 mm
Neck width, nut: 36.8 mm
Neck width, heel: 46 mm
Soundhole diameter: 78.5 mm
ProvenanceOwned by a Monk of Certosa di San Lorenzo of Padula; then to the father of Canonico Francesco Saverio Arato; then to Canonico Francesco Saverio Arato, Salerno, Italy; then Michele Gallo (the priest’s cousin) brought it to USA (presumably); then Rudolph Wurlitzer Co. 1929; Louis Krasner, Boston, Massachusetts, 1934- December 1985 (Hills wrote Krasner a certificate in 1934 but knew about the instrument at least as early as 1902.)
Purchased by National Music Museum from Bein & Fushi, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, December 5, 1985 with purchase funds gift of the Rawlins Fund.
Published ReferencesNMM catalog: _As Good as Gold: The First 50 Years (1973-2023)_. Vermillion, SD: National Music Museum, 2023. (pp. 37, 44-45)
Rembert Wurlitzer, Inc., Loan Exhibition of Stringed Instruments and Bows: Commemorating the Seventieth Birthday of Simone Fernando Sacconi, New York City, October 1966 (Stuttgart: Schuler Verlagsgesellschaft, 1966).
Herbert Goodkind, The Violin Iconography of Antonio Stradivari (Larchmont, New York: Herbert Goodkind, 1972), p. 298.
Simone Fernando Sacconi, The Secrets of Stradivari (Cremona: Libreria Del Convegno, 1979), p. 230.
Guitares: Chefs-d'oeuvre des collections de France (Paris: La Fl-te de Pan, 1980), pp. 78-82.
"Rare Strad Guitar a Highlight . . . Important Acquisitions of 1985 Await New Galleries," Shrine to Music Museum, Inc. Newsletter 13, No. 2 (January 1986), pp. 1-2.
"1985 Acquisitions at USD Music Museum," Newsletter of the American Musical Instrument Society 15, No. 1 (February 1986), p. 8
The Strad (April 1986), front cover.
Bein & Fushi, Inc. 1987 Calendar, January/February.
Charles Beare, Capolavori di Antonio Stradivari (Milan : A. Mondadori Editore, 1987), pp. 64-65.
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. 25-26.
Von Holger Skor, "Das 'Genie' Stradivari - ein Mythos? Zum 250. Todestag des legendären Instrumentenbauers," Musikblatt 14, No. 119 (December 1987-January 1988), pp. 15-17.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 50.
“More Than 400 Luthiers Meet at Museum in June,” The Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 19, No. 4 (July 1992), p. 2.
Charles Beare, with the collaboration of Bruce Carlson, Antonio Stradivari: The Cremona Exhibition of 1987 (London: J. & A. Beare, 1993), 132-136.
Gary Baese, "Reproducing the Finish of The 'Rawlins' Stradivari Guitar," American Lutherie 33 (Spring 1993), pp. 30-34.
"Country Almanac: Legendary Sounds," Country America (June 1993), p. 16.
Darcy Kuronen, Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2001), pp. 32 and 220.
David Massey, "From Renaissance to Rock: The Museum of Fine Arts celebrates The Art of the Guitar," Musical Merchandise Review (February 2001), p. 42.
“Grammy Winner Visits to See Strad Guitar,” National Music Museum Newsletter 33, No. 2 (May 2006), p. 2.
Technical Drawing and photography by Jonathan Santa Maria Bouquet, National Music Museum, 2009
Stewart Pollens, Stradivari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 205, 213-216, 221-222.
Jayson Kerr Dobney. “Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 68, No. 3 (Winter 2011), pp. 10-11, figs. 13-14.
Gulbrandson, Travis. “Museum’s Instruments will Play to Larger Audience, Through Books.” Vermillion Plain Talk. February 15, 2013. As seen on
http://plaintalk.net/2013/02/museums-instruments-will-play-to-larger-audience-through-books/ on 16 February 2013. (Includes photograph by Travis Gulbrandson of Gary Ombler photographing NMM 3976)
Alan Di Perna, “Super Strad,” Guitar Aficionado 5, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 2013), p. 28.
Article: Kyle MacMillan, "State of Being: Restoration or Conservation?," Early Music America 30, No. 3 (September 2024), p. 21. (image)
Technical Drawings
Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1985
Object number03976
On View
On view
1680-1730 ca.
