Reale Violin
date: label: Date made
content: 1939
name: label: maker
content: Reale, Nicola
notes: label: Description
content: This violin was made by Nicola Reale in Washington, DC in 1939. Nicola Reale was born November 23, 1886 in Viggiano, Italy (about 85 miles southeast of Naples), and presumably received musical training in this region. Immigrating to the United States, he was established in Washington DC in 1911 as a violin teacher and musician, his main occupation until retirement in the 1970s.
label: Description
content: Nicola Reale was also a self-taught violin maker, and he is recorded as a Civil Works preparator of musical instruments at the Smithsonian Institution from December, 1933 through April, 1940. In addition to undertaking repairs of museum instruments, he designed and constructed this violin in the Anthropological Laboratory, in 1939, under a Smithsonian Institution Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) project. Apart from his Smithsonian employment, Nicola pursued an active performing career, and continued to make new instruments. The Washington Post newspaper account of his death on January 12, 1974 includes a picture of Nicola Reale in 1957 with Richard Nixon, presenting a violin he made expressly for the then Vice-President of the United States. Another violin is cited as one in the possession of the museum at La Scala in Milan, Italy.
label: Description
content: This violin is made of a two-piece table of sitka spruce, two-piece back of slab-cut American maple with irregular, medium, horizontal figure, ribs, neck, pegbox and scroll of similar maple, and a transparent reddish-brown varnish.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: District of Columbia, Washington
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Musical Instruments
label: See more items in
content: Music & Musical Instruments
label: See more items in
content: Violins
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MI.380624
label: catalog number
content: 380624
label: accession number
content: 156060
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 1/2 in x 7 1/4 in x 3 1/2 in; 59.69 cm x 18.415 cm x 8.89 cm