Gemünder Violin
date: label: Date made
content: 1869-1872
name: label: maker
content: Gemunder, George
notes: label: Description
content: This violin was made by George Gemünder in Astoria, New York around 1868-1872. This Guarneri model violin, while worn from years of use, shows many elements of George Gemünder's talent in creating direct copies of old instruments. In the book that was both written and published by him in 1881, The Violin: George Gemünder's Progress in Violin Making (with Interesting Facts Concerning the Art and Its Critics in General), he related the experience of submitting one of his Guarneri model violins to the 1873 Vienna Exhibition:
label: Description
content: “In the Exhibition of Vienna, my violin was mistaken for a genuine Cremonese violin, not only for its tone, but for its outer appearance which was so striking an imitation according to Joseph Guarnerius
label: Description
content: that a newspaper of Vienna made the observation “George Gemünder cannot make us Germans believe that the violin sent by him is new. A bold Yankee, only, can put his name in a genuine instrument in order
label: Description
content: to make himself renowned.”
label: Description
content: This violin is made of one-piece table of spruce, two-piece back of maple cut on the quarter with an irregular broad ascending figure, ribs are of similar maple, the maple neck-graft terminates in the original maple pegbox and scroll, and a golden-orange varnish.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: New York, Queens, Astoria
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
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of William P. Bebbington
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1980.0906.01
label: catalog number
content: 1980.0906.01
label: accession number
content: 1980.0906
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 8 in x 3 1/2 in; 60.325 cm x 20.32 cm x 8.89 cm