The old violin

Tuchfarber, Frank (active late 19th century)

Harnett, William Michael (1848-1892) (after a work of)

Item type:

print

Date of creation:

1887

Height:

61.0 cm  (24 in.)

Width:

87.8 cm  (34 9/16 in.)

Technique / Medium:

chromo lithograph on glass

Place of creation:

United States

Description

This is a still life of a violin hanging on an old wooden door from a peg by a string tied around the scroll. The violin shows signs of wear and there is rosin on the soundbox under the playing area of the strings. The bow hangs on a peg from the frog to the right of the violin. There is a news clipping glued to the door at the bottom left of the violin, and a green envelope beneath the news clipping. The envelope is addressed to W.M. Harnett, 28 East 14th St., New York. It has a 25 cent stamp that is canceled with a postmark from Paris dated 3.27.86. There is a sheet of music with the top left and bottom right corners curled inward. The music appears realistic, but the key signature of two flats is not accurate from line to line. The first flat appears on either the B line or C space, while the second flat appears on the E space or D line. The door is a dark green color, and the large rusted iron hinges at the top and bottom of the door extend from the right to nearly the left side of the door. The door handle is a rusted iron ring at the left side of the door.

Iconclass

41E1
still life of related objects
48C7311
violin, fiddle

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Violin [3573]

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

Bibliographic references

Marzio, Peter C. The democratic art: Pictures for a 19th-century America: Chromolithography, 1840-1900 (Boston: D.R. Godine in association with the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, 1979) 146-47.

Frankenstein, Alfred V. After the hunt: William Harnett and other American still life painters, 1870-1900. Rev. ed. California Studies in the History of Art, 12 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969) 74-78.

RIdIM record id

5370