Domenico Montagnana, Venice, 1747
Bass: 40183
Unlabeled.
Back: Two-piece figured maple with deep, wide flames
Top: in four pieces of spruce with grain of medium width
Scroll: very large, of plain maple
Ribs: of wood similar to back
Length of back: 117 cm
Upper bouts: 51.5 cm
Lower bouts: 68.5 cm
Notes:
"It remains, and probably always has been a three-string bass; the head it is true shews five peg-holes, two of which have been filled up, but it seems reasonable to suppose that these latter have been plugged and fresh ones bored when the present machine was fitted, as neither the style nor the period of the instrument (which it will be seen has a modelled back and not a flat one) is consistent with the theory that it was originally a true violone with five strings"A Montagnana Double-Bass, Towry Piper, The Strad, 1911, London
Provenance
| Charles Adolph Maucotel | |
| Frederick Sidney Pratten | |
| Nicholas Hanhart | |
| Charles Harper | |
| in 1911 | T. W. Bourne |
| until 1936 | Claude Hobday |
| from 1936 | Don Cheeseman |
| in 1997 | Current owner |
References
The Strad 1994 Calendar, Orpheus Publications, London (illustrated)- The Strad, 1911, Towry Piper, London, Apr 1911 (illustrated)
- The Strad, February, 1991, Charles Beare & Duane Rosengard, Orpheus, London (illustrated)
- Domenica Montagnana - "Lauter in Venetia": Exposition of Lendinara 1997, Carlson Cacciatori Neumann & C., Cremona (illustrated)
- Four Centuries of Violin Making: Fine Instruments from the Sotheby's Archive, Sotheby's, Sotheby's, Boston (illustrated)
- Geigen aus Venedig, Aloys Greither, Werner Dausien, Hanau (illustrated)
- Les violons: Venetian instruments, paintings & drawings, Association pour la Promotion des Arts, Paris (illustrated)
- Looking at the Double Bass, Raymond Elgar, Stephen W. Fillo, Princeton (illustrated)
- Sotheby's Musical Instruments Auction Catalog, March 16, 1999, London, Sotheby's, Sotheby's, London (illustrated)
- Sotheby's Photo Archive
- Violin and Lute Makers of Venice, Stefano Pio, Venice Research, Venice (illustrated)