Still life—violin and music

Harnett, William Michael (1848-1892)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1888

Height:

101.6 cm  (40 in.)

Width:

76.2 cm  (30 in.)

Signature: [on calling card at lower right]: W.M. Harnett; [at lower right]: 1888. Inscription: [on the back before lining]: 10 /88

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

Attached to a slightly opened door are a few objects arranged in a vertical format (from left to right); a box with matches, a musical bow with inlaid frog; a standard 19th-century violin with rosin dust beneath the strings; behind the violin a music sheet (approximately accurate notation, see notes below); a calling card and an ivory and granadilla piccolo. On the upper right corner a horseshoe.

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Violin [3573] (Rosin dust visible beneath the strings.)
Piccolo flute [4029] (Ivory and granadilla wood.)
Bow [2207] (With inlaid frog.)

Musical works

Moore, Thomas -- "Saint Kevin, or By That Lake Whose Gloomy Shore" from "Irish Melodies."legible music notation
Approximately accurate notation.

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

Notes

Music was a recurring theme in Harnett's work (see also Harnett's painting "Still life" (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67.155.1). It is said that he played the flute and the estate sale of his studio effects included many of the instruments and sheet music that had served as models for his paintings. Both the bow and the piccolo of the painting correspond to items included in Harnett's studio.

The work of the Irish poet Thomas Moore was very popular in America during the 1870s and 1880s. Moore's tales and poems inspired both composers and artists (see for example Pinkham Ryder's (1847–1917) painting "Nourmahal," MMA 32.67.2).

RIdIM record id

3215