French Violin Bow: Museum Object and Cultural History
French Violin Bow: date made: ca 1880. Object Name: bow. Physical Description: snakewood (overall material).
The object in the museum catalogue
This violin bow was made by and unknown maker in Mirecourt, France, about 1880, and sold by the J. Howard Foote Company in New York and Chicago. It is a round snakewood stick with an ivory face, nickel silver lined ebony frog with underslide, colored pearl slide, and ebony button with two nickel silver rings (one extant), and a pearl eye.
John Howard Foote (1833-1896) was a musical instrument dealer with shops in New York City and Chicago. This instrument listed in an 1880 J. Howard Foote catalog, sold as a violin bow (#6168), for $37.50 per dozen.
Materials, dates and provenance
- date made: ca 1880
- Object Name: bow
- Physical Description: snakewood (overall material)
- Physical Description: ivory (overall material)
- Physical Description: ebony (overall material)
- Physical Description: nickel silver (overall material)
- Physical Description: pearl (overall material)
- Physical Description: horsehair (overall material)
- Measurements: overall: 29 1/4 in x 1 1/8 in x 1/2 in; 74.295 cm x 2.8575 cm x 1.27 cm
- place made: France: Grand Est, Mirecourt
- ID Number: MI.055697
- catalog number: 55697
- accession number: 11535
- Credit Line: Gift of J. Howard Foote
- 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.
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