French Violin
date: label: Date made
content: 1878 - 1882
notes: label: Description
content: This violin was made in Mirecourt, France around 1880. An oversized commercial Mirecourt violin (with 14 3/8 inch body length), this violin is listed in J. Howard Foote’s 1882 catalog under French copies of old masters. It is item #5935: “Copy of Stradivarius, extra fine quality, . . . Each $22.00.” Many violins like this were made in Mirecourt. While thousands of these violins were sold with reproduction labels of famous makers like Amati, Guarneri, Stainer and Stradivari, this instrument is clearly labeled to prevent misunderstanding of the Stradivari attribution. A second Smithsonian example is catalog #55682, described in the Foote catalog as the same quality of instrument. It is built with similar archings, outline and pearwood purfling, but bears a reproduction Guarneri label. This violin is made of a two-piece table of spruce, two-piece back of maple with medium-fine ascending figure, ribs, neck, pegbox and scroll of similar maple, and a shaded orange-brown varnish.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: France: Grand Est, Mirecourt
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Musical Instruments
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content: Music & Musical Instruments
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content: Violins
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Densmore, Frances. Handbook of the Collection of Musical Instruments in the United States National Museum.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MI.072846
label: catalog number
content: 72846
label: accession number
content: 12809
objectType: label: Object Name
content: violin
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: spruce (table material)
label: Physical Description
content: maple (back material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 23 3/4 in x 7 1/4 in x 3 1/2 in; 60.325 cm x 18.415 cm x 8.89 cm