DHV:
606
Tourin ID:
MFA 7, LOAN 10
Size:
Tenor ?
Place Made:
Maker:
D
Mainz
Johann Joseph
Elsler ?
Date:
1730 C
Label Text:
[None]
Body Shape:
Viol
Current Location:
USA
Boston, MA
No. of Strings:
5
Collection:
Museum of Fine Arts
Sound Holes:
Flame
Catalog Number:
1917.1714 (formerly 278)
Head:
Male
Private Owner:
Previous Owner:
Francis W. Galpin, -1916
Measurements:
Body Length:
44
String Length:
42
Rib Depth:
6.9
Upper Width:
21.8
Middle Width:
14.7
Bottom Width:
27.8
Information
Source:
Museum data sheet; Loan 1904, p. 148
Literature:
MacCracken 2022, p. 86; Galpin 1972, p. 18; Bessaraboff 1941, p. 282; Loan 1904, p. 148; Loan 1900, p. 28
Photographs:
On museum’s website (front (color]); Bessaraboff 1941, pl. XI (front)
Recordings:
Auctions:
Comments:
2-piece back. Tourin: violin-type neck. Repair label: “Donald Warnock / Lute Maker / Brewer St. Cambridge Mass / Repaired Feb. 1962” [handwritten]. (His report in museum file notes loss of original fingerboard, hookbar, and pegs; he found “entire instrument covered with overcoat of highly colored blackish-brown varnish” which he stripped and replaced with a thin coat on table and back.) Loan 1904 called it an alto and gave date as 1750; this and attribution to Elsler evidently by Galpin. Bessaraboff 1941: small tenor viol; narrow and rounded neck too short for 7 frets, tailgut; “obviously meant to be played as an orchestra viola”; dimensions 44.0, 21.7/13.7/27.5, 7.2, 40.3; Tourin: tenor; MFA website: “tenor viola da gamba (?)”.