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Tenor Viola by Jacob Stainer, Absam bei Innsbruck, ca. 1650
NMM 3371. Tenor viola by Jacob Stainer, Absam bei Innsbruck, ca. 1650. Ex colls.: Hermann Hammig, Berlin; Fridolin Hamma, Stuttgart. Witten-Rawlins Collection, 1984.
This famous instrument, the only tenor viola by Jacob Stainer known to survive, has twice been exhibited in Mittenwald, Germany, in 1953 and 1959; in 1982, as part of a major exhibition, Jacobus Stainer & 18th-Century Violin Masters, at the Library & Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City; and in 1990, in the exhibition Amadeus: His Music and the Instruments of Eighteenth-century Vienna, presented by the National Music Museum at the Dahl Fine Arts Center in Rapid City, South Dakota. In 2003, the viola was loaned to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (KHM), to be be shown in the retrospective exhibition, Jacob Stainer, that the KHM presented in Ambras Castle, overlooking Innsbruck, June 4-October 31, just a few miles from where the master craftsman lived and worked for most of his life.
Close-up of Stainer viola soundholes
Acquired by Laurence Witten of Southport, Connecticut, in 1961, the tenor viola came to the National Music Museum in 1984 with the Witten-Rawlins Collection of early Italian stringed instruments, and is regularly exhibited at the Museum as part of a permanent exhibition, Musical Treasures from the Age of Louis XIV.
Three views of the Stainer viola pegbox.
The Museum's tenor viola, as well as its Stainer violin, built in 1668, was x-rayed and photographed in Vienna in March 2003 for a scholarly catalog written to complement the KHM's exhibition at the Ambras Castle. Prior to the exhibition, the violin and viola underwent comparative acoustical and other scientific tests, including dendrochronology, confirming that the wood dates from before the years in which the instruments were built.
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of Bowed Stringed Instruments Made Before 1800
Consult the Luthier's Library for detailed measurements and photos
High-Quality Image (Actual Size) of this Viola Available from Luthier's Library of Violin and Viola Photographs
National Music Museum
The University of South Dakota
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