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Viola d'amore
mid 18th century
Object Place: Probably Prague, Czech Republic
Medium/Technique
Maple, spruce, ebony
Dimensions
Length 74.7 cm, width 24.2 cm (Length 29 7/16 in., width 9 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Leslie Lindsey Mason Collection
Accession Number17.1719
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsMusical Instruments
ClassificationsMusical instruments – Chordophones
DescriptionViol type body, shallow model. Flat back of maple, in two pieces. Ribs of maple. Belly of pine, highly arched between middle bouts; inlaid purfling, flame type sound-holes. Neck of maple with a clearance groove for sympathetic strings. Peg-box integral with neck, slightly tilted toward right, surmounted with blindfolded Cupid's head; back of peg-box carved and gilded; bored for twelve lateral pegs. Hook-bar of ivory. Tail-piece of ebony, with the top cut slantwise. Two sets of strings affixed as follows: 1. Five playing strings are held by ivory buttons inserted in the tail-piece; they pass over a movable bridge, over the nut and are fastened to five lower pegs. 2. Seven sympathetic strings of thin steel wire are fixed by ivory buttons to an inclined cross-bar glued to the belly and pass through a narrow slit in the bridge, under the finger-board through the neck clearance space, over the auxiliary ivory nut below the main nut (which also has a clearance), and are affixed to the upper seven pegs. Inside construction: Two cross-bars glued to the back; small straight corner fillets; bass-bar and sound-post. Dark brown varnish.
InscriptionsPrinted label: JOACHIM TIELKE / in Hamburg, An. 16 [handwritten: 70]
ProvenanceFrancis W. Galpin (1858-1945), Hatfield Regis, England; 1916, sold by Francis W. Galpin to William Lindsey (1858-1922), Boston, Massachusetts; 1916, gift of William Lindsey, in memory of his daughter, Leslie Lindsey Mason, to the MFA. (Accession Date: October 5, 1916)
Aria #4 and Andante #6, excerpts from Kantate Nr. 152 am Sonntag nach Weihnachten "Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn," 1714
Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach
Performed by Marcus Thompson on a viola d'amore, made in Bohemia, about 1750