DHV:
364
Tourin ID:
HARN 01

1558

Bass

Stephanus

De Fantis

# of Strings:

(4)

Place Made:

I, Cremona

Body Shape:

Guitar

Current Location:

A, Vienna

Sound Holes:

C

Collection:

Private collection

Head:

Scroll

Catalog Number:

​

Label Text:

Stephanus de Fa[n]tis, 1558 [handwritten]

Measurements:

String Length:

​

Total Length:

​

Body Length:

80.6

Upper Width:

35.7

Rib Depth:

11

Middle Width:

26.2

Bottom Width:

44.4

Previous Owner:

In 1783, Königliche Damenstift, Hall (Tirol); then Josef Christoph von Wenger-Wiesenburg and his heirs (Hall, later Innsbruck); Prof. Maximilian Jeller, Graz, 1916-54

Information Source:

Senn 1957

Literature:

Photographs:

Recordings:

Auctions:

Comments:

Hopfner & Seipel 2003, p. 193 (VII.9); Senn 1957

Hopfner & Seipel 2003, p. 193 (front); Senn 1957, between pp. 392-93 (FB+S)

​

​

Senn: Only body is original; one-piece table and (arched) back. Soundholes are backwards Cs and very close (hence originally only 5 strings?). Modified to a cello in mid-18th C.: already listed as such in a 1783 inventory, which adds “in Cremona” after maker’s name. New neck, still as a cello, for Prof. M. Jeller, c. 1916. Dimensions: 80, 36/-/44, 12, -. Repair label: “Joan. Georg Psenner, Lauten-, / Geigen- und Saitenmacher in Inns- / bruck. An. 1791. Reparavit” [printed except 91, Reparavit]. Hopfner & Seipel: 5-piece purfling, uniquely also on ribs. No further information on builder. Probably same instrument as the one about which Paul Laird (on p. 96 of The Baroque Cello Revival, giving a date of 1557) quotes Harnoncourt’s description as “not a cello and not a gamba but grandfather of both...about ten centimeters larger than a cello.”