{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O58911"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O58911/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011EM5838/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011EM5838/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2011EM5838","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2011EM5836","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2010EC7890","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2010EC7889","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2010EC7891","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AK8816","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2011EM5837","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AK8818","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AK8817","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JV3269","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O58911/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O58911","accessionNumber":"7360-1861","objectType":"Bass viol","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"The bass viol is a six-stringed instrument, often crowned with a carved female head, fitted with frets along its neck and tuned like a lute.  It sounded like a softer version of the 'cello, and by about 1700 it was being played solo as well as in accompaniment in small ensembles.\r\nThis instrument was mostly made by Joachim Thielke, an important maker from Hamburg (Germany) of the early 1700s, but one of its owners replaced the original tailpiece, which would almost certainly have matched the fingerboard, with one that must have come from an English bass viol.\r\n\r\n","physicalDescription":"'Belly of two pieces of pine, with ivory edges and four lines of simulated purfling in black paint. Back of two pieces of sycamore, bent inwards in the upper part (with an interior strengthening bar at this point) and without a sharp angle. Wooden side linings. The root of the neck and the pegbox are carved in relief with scrollwork. The carved head is of a woman, tailpiece, attached to a hook-bar, with marquetry of ebony and boxwood with a bird and a butterfly amid scrolls. Fingerboard with fine marquetry floral scrollwork in ivory and tortoiseshell, engraved and blackened, Six dark-stained pegs.' - Anthony Baines: <i>Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instrments </i>, p. 6  (London, V & A Publications, 1998)\n\nThe neck and carved head appear (by eye) to be sycamore. The pegs are replacements of relatively recent date. On the neck marquetry, a metallic gold-coloured paste is visible under magnfication outlining the ivory motifs and accentuating the engraving.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Thielke, Joachim","id":"A11673"},"association":{"text":"makers","id":"AAT251917"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"ivory","id":"AAT11857"},{"text":"tortoiseshell","id":"AAT11837"},{"text":"pine","id":"AAT12620"},{"text":"sycamore","id":"AAT12357"}],"techniques":[{"text":"planing","id":"AAT53863"},{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"},{"text":"inlay","id":"AAT53853"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Planed pine and sycamore, carved wood (not identified), inlaid ivory and tortoiseshell","categories":[{"text":"Musical instruments","id":"THES48919"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2011EM5838","2011EM5836","2010EC7890","2010EC7889","2010EC7891","2006AK8816","2011EM5837","2006AK8818","2006AK8817","2017JV3269"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES299398"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Bass Viol","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Hamburg","id":"x28900"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1700","earliest":"1695-01-01","latest":"1704-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Length","value":"120.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"total","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"68","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Belly of instrument","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"30","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Upper bout","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"35","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"lower bout","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"67.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"strings","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Dimensions taken from Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum, part I, keyboard instruments by Howard Schott. part II, non-keyboard instruments by Anthony Baines.","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"This instrument was bought by the South Kensington Museum for £4 - 11 - 0.  At the time the fingerboard was thought to be a later edition, but in more recent years it was thought to be the tail piece.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Bass viol, pine and sycamore, inlaid with ivory and tortoiseshell, made by Joachim Thielke, Hamburg, about 1700","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Anthony Baines: <i>Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instrments </i>, p. 6  (London, V & A Publications, 1998)"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"BW Negative Numbers: FE1702, FE1703; 31737, 77168; DC78539, DC78540, DC78541."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Friedemann and Barbara Hellwig, Joachim Tielke: Kunstvolle Musikinstrumente des Barock (Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011), pp.350-1. ISBN  978-3-422-07078-3"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Victoria & Albert Museum: Fifty Masterpieces of Woodwork (London, 1955), no. 24.\n\r\nAn Italian Viol  \n\r\nThe viol de gambo, known in Italy as leg-viol (<i>viola da gamba</i>) and in Germany as knee-viol (<i>Kniegeige</i>), took its name from the playing position.  Its form developed in the sixteenth century from the medieval fiddle. Its quality of ‘disposing us to Solidity, Gravity and Good Temper’ gave it a vogue in England, where Shakespeare’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek 'playes o’ the viol de gamboys,' and James I and his family took lessons from the celebrated Coprario (John Cooper, d. 1627). In Restoration times instruments by Henry Jaye, John Ross and other Elizabethans ‘rumbled in the Bottom of the Consort,’ and were sometimes sold for so much as £100.  \r\nThe ‘generous viol’ offered ample surface for decoration with marquetry of ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ebony and fruit-woods. The more sumptuous Italian and German examples were often decorated with scenes and designs in renaissance taste, but not always appropriately to the functional form on the instrument.  \r\nThis simpler Italian viol, fashioned about 1600 by an unknown maker, has a sycamore back, pinewood belly and boxwood pegs. Decoration is chiefly confined to the ivory and tortoiseshell finger-board and the carved head, but the beautifully contrasted curves of the bouts have been happily accented by a white ivory outline.  \r\nThe viol de gambo was bought by the Museum in 1861.  \n\r\n<i>Italian; about 1600.</i>\r\nH. 48 in., W. 14 in. \r\n"}],"production":"'In the opnion of Gunther Hellwig of Lübeck this instrument is by Joachim Thielke, including the fingerboard, but the tailpiece is by Barak Norman.' - Anthony Baines: <i>Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instrments </i>, p. 6  (London, V & A Publications, 1998)","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"woman","id":"x39474"},{"text":"bird","id":"x35043"},{"text":"butterfly","id":"x30161"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"BASS VIOL \r\nGerman; mostly about 1700 \r\nPine top, sycamore back and sides, ivory edges, tortoise shell and ivory finger board. The tail piece is decorated with ebony and boxwood marquetry bird and butterfly motifs.\r\n\r\nNon-Keyboard Catalogue No.: 1/9 \r\n\r\nThis instrument has been attributed largely to Joachim Tielke, although it has been suggested that the tailpiece is by Barak Norman.\r\n\r\n7360-1861","date":{"text":"pre September 2000","earliest":null,"latest":"2000-08-31"}}],"partNumbers":["7360-1861"],"accessionNumberNum":"7360","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1861,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-23","recordCreationDate":"2001-05-16","availableToBook":true}}