DHV:
1144
Tourin ID:
Size:
Bass
Place Made:
Maker:
F
Paris
Claude
Pierray
Date:
1709
Label Text:
Claude Pieray / a Paris, 1709
Body Shape:
Viol
Current Location:
GB
London
No. of Strings:
7
Collection:
Royal College of Music
Sound Holes:
C
Catalog Number:
RCM0990
Head:
Female
Private Owner:
Previous Owner:
Jane Ryan, 1995- ; Peter Zimmermann, Berlin, 1967-95; Walter Schulz, Weimar/Leipzig/Berlin, before 1949-1967
Measurements:
Body Length:
63.9
String Length:
67.5
Rib Depth:
12.4
Upper Width:
30.8
Middle Width:
22.8
Bottom Width:
37.8
Information
Source:
TGM visit to Kessler, 10/01; H. Harders to TGM, 9/00; Sotheby’s 11/8/95, lot 116; letter from seller to Sotheby’s, forwarded to buyer
Literature:
Montagu 1996, p. 533; Sotheby’s 11/8/95, lot 116
Photographs:
On museum’s website (front 7/8 [color]); Soubeyran 2008, pp. 26 (head 3/4), 28 (F+B); Sotheby’s 11/8/95, lot 116 (F+B); [by TGM: FB+S (color)]
Recordings:
Auctions:
Comments:
Sotheby’s 1995/11/08, lot 116
Sotheby’s: 2-piece back, plain pegbox, double purfling on table but none on back; body length 64.5, string length 67.3. Harders: 2-piece carved table; original center of neck remains, now widened and reset; source of dimensions (widths taken on back). (Walter Schulz was solo cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic 1918-26, and later taught at Hochschule für Musik in Weimar, where Peter Zimmermann was his student 1949 ff.; Z. inherited the viol at S’s death, but never played.] Montagu 1996: “...a Pierray bass gamba at £24,150, a sum that must have surprised the worms if any were still lurking in the holes that were plainly visible.”