DHV:
1280
Tourin ID:
Size:
Bass
Place Made:
Maker:
GB
London
Date:
16..
Label Text:
[None]
Body Shape:
Viol
Current Location:
USA
New York, NY
No. of Strings:
6
Collection:
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sound Holes:
C
Catalog Number:
2009.42
Head:
Male
Private Owner:
Previous Owner:
Stuart Pivar, New York, -2009
Measurements:
Body Length:
63.7
String Length:
60.0?
Rib Depth:
10.6
Upper Width:
30.1
Middle Width:
21.7
Bottom Width:
37.5
Information
Source:
Ben Hebbert to TGM, 10/01; TGM visit 5/01
Literature:
Museum’s website (including article by Elizabeth Weinfield dated 6/25/14); Raymaekers 2020, p. 245; Heyde 2010, p. 36
Photographs:
On museum’s website (front 3/4, back, head side [color]); Fleming & Bryan 2016, pl. 3 (F 3/4 + B, head side [color], p. 89 (purfling details); Heyde 2010, p. 36 (front [color])
Recordings:
Auctions:
Comments:
Loaned to Metropolitan Museum of Art for Vermeer exhibition, spring 2001, where seen on display (lying on its back). Unusual floral table ornament, perhaps a carnation? C-holes wide, table grain medium to wide with double purfling and moderate arching. Fingerboard and tailpiece honey-colored, decorated with patterns of many small diamonds plus double perimeter purfling; pegs chocolate-brown. Male head large and not very elegant, with moustache. Delicate hookbar; also delicate wood linings to back perimeter. Bridge has old-style feet with large, elegant cutouts. Hebbert reports dimensions and: 5-piece table; back plain; original neck (nailed to top block), fingerboard, and tailpiece of maple with inlaid grid pattern. Probably made in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Subsequently acquired by museum, whose website initially called it English, ca. 1700 and gives dimensions 64.3, 29.6/21.3/37.4, -, -. Heyde 2010 (and website subsequently) gives date as “1640-65 based on construction details and decorative style” (display label adds: long hair on carved male head in fashion 1640-50); also, carnation “imitates embroidery patterns fashionable in England about 1600 and after.” W. Monical (in conversation, 9/10): all original except bridge; extensively restored by him; definitely English and probably early 17th C. F. Beaulieu to TGM 8/15: String length perhaps a typo: visibly longer than body length. etc.) Outline drawing of bridge in Raemaekers 2020, p. 245.