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Viola d'amore

7 stopped, 7 sympathetic strings. Back: flat, 2 pieces of birds-eye maple with a stringer of darker wood along the midline; end of body: marked by a shallow groove at the edge; button: rounded, with maker's name stamped on (now illegible); no purfling or line around the edge. Varnish: clear brown spirit, good. Belly: 2 pieces of fine-grained pine, well arched with slight groove along the waist; sound-holes: characteristic flame shaped; a single line of purfling, well-laid, with wide white and narrow black strips; scroll as grotesque head; 14 pegs. Ribs: of similar wood to the back, but plainer. End-pin: ivory, with inlaid ring of ebony. 7 ivory pins through the ribs into the end-block for the sympathetic strings. End-nut: ebony, raised and grooved to take the end-gut (at present metal). Tailpiece: light ebony, obliquely cut in a wavy line along the front edge, with a strip of ?spelter. Bridge: of pine, ?original, with 'Hans Vogel' written on it; with slit for the sympathetic strings to pass through. Neck: wide, shallow, one piece with head, angled. Pegbox: a continuous shallow s-curve, open at back with ivory nuts, the front and back ones decoratively incised. Pegs: 14, of which 7 in oak with ivory studs at ends, the rest smaller, thinner, of plain rosewood (?later); pegbox ends in a very heavy-featured female head, almost negroid, with big drop-earrings, wavy hair and severe frown. Inside: strip down midline of back; 3 cross-bars, bass-bar and soundpost. Length 830, back 394, width 185/128/242, depth 65/48

  • Culture:
  • Period:18th century
  • Materials:
  • Specific materials/techniques:
  • Decorative elements:belly: at each corner is inlaid a rather clumsy ebony fleur-de-lys, and a Gothic rosette carved and pierced in the belly
  • Inscriptions:stamped on back of button: 'H.V...'
  • Hornbostel-Sachs category:
  • Repository:Royal Northern College of Music