Albert "Concert" Violin: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This violin was made by John Albert in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1876. Albert, born in Freiburg, Germany, was a lawyer and an amateur violin maker who immigrated to America in 1848. He settled in Philadelphia and quickly established an excellent reputation as a violin maker. This Albert "Concert Violin" was a prize-winning entry at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. John Albert died in 1887 after a long collaboration with his son, E. J. Albert. This violin is made of a two-piece table of spruce, back of North American maple cut on the slab with strong, irregular, horizontal figure, ribs of similar North American maple, mildly figured maple neck, pegbox and scroll, and a semi-transparent reddish-brown varnish.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1876
• maker: Albert, John
• Object Name: violin
• Physical Description: spruce (table material)
• Physical Description: maple (back material)
• Measurements: overall: 23 3/4 in x 8 in x 3 1/2 in; 60.325 cm x 20.32 cm x 8.89 cm
• Place Made: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
• ID Number: 1981.0781.01
• accession number: 1981.0781
• catalog number: 1981.0781.01
• Credit Line: Gift of Frances F. Wilkins
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.