English Viola da gamba Bow: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This bow was made by an unknown maker in England, around 1740-1760. It is viola da gamba bow, made of a round "horse-flesh” wood stick terminated in a modified pike head, with an open ivory frog and button.

The material of this bow remains unidentified in our time but is commonly known as “horse-flesh” wood, in recognition of the many extremely long open pores and pithy nature of the wood. Bows of this material, not uncommon in the 18th century, are almost exclusively round or oval, without ornamentation or fluting and of unusually large diameter. Extra mass and thickness were required to approximate the weight, balance and resilience of heavier traditional woods, i.e., snakewood, ironwood, beefwood and even Pernambuco. The ivory frog with a “snow-plow” ornament on the front edge is an ornamental reminder of earlier bows with clip-in frogs. The ornament was used to locate and fasten the frog on the stick, creating tensioning on the bow hair. This bow is in an excellent state of preservation, retaining the frog, eyelet, screw, and button intact.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1740-1760
• Object Name: bow
• Physical Description: "horse-flesh" wood (overall material)
• Physical Description: ivory (overall material)
• Physical Description: horsehair (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 1 9/16 in x 29 in x 7/16 in; 3.96875 cm x 73.66 cm x 1.11125 cm
• place made: United Kingdom: England
• ID Number: MI.69.10
• accession number: 281385
• catalog number: 69.10
• 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.