Stainer Violin
date: label: date made
content: 1645-1655
name: label: maker
content: Stainer, Jacob
notes: label: Description
content: This violin was made by Jacob Stainer in Absam (Innsbruck), Austria in 1645-1655. The earliest known reference to this instrument is made in a letter of 20 September 1882, by Thomas Bushrod
label: Description
content: Washington, the great, great, great-nephew of President George Washington. He eventually auctioned it for $335 in 1891 claiming that the violin was once the property of the First President. The instrument then became the property of the Sutro family, of Baltimore, Maryland. Otto Sutro, a German immigrant, was a general agent for the piano manufacturers Steinway & Sons and William Knabe & Co. He was the father of the duo-pianists, the Sutro Sisters, and as patron of the Arts he operated the Wednesday Club for the cultivation and enjoyment of music. From this family’s heirs, the violin came to the Smithsonian in 1971.
label: Description
content: The instrument was restored to baroque proportions in the Museum’s Conservation Laboratories in 1974 for use in baroque performance at the Smithsonian. During that restoration, the existing 19th-century pegbox and scroll was replaced with an original that had been taken from another violin by Jacob Stainer. This violin has a reproduction Stainer label and is made of a two-piece table of spruce with even fine grain broadening toward the flanks, one-piece back of slab-cut maple with irregular, mild horizontal figure, ribs of similar maple cut on the slab-45o, modern maple baroque neck with original pegbox and scroll of maple with even medium figure, and a yellow-brown varnish.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: Austria: Tyrol, Absam
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: Music From the Age of Jefferson
label: Related Publication
content: Handel, George Frideric. Seven Concerti Grossi, Op. 3
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MI.71.17
label: catalog number
content: 71.17
label: accession number
content: 291808
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 1/4 in x 8 in x 3 7/8 in; 59.055 cm x 20.32 cm x 9.8425 cm