Gagliano Violin: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This violin was made by Nicolo Gagliano, in Naples, Italy in 1750. Nicolo Gagliano worked in the period around 1740-1780(?) and was the eldest son of Alessandro (ca. 1640-1730), founder of the Gagliano family of violin makers in Naples. Nicolo usually worked quite neatly on a model based on that of Stradivari. This instrument bears unusually high archings, but is characteristically finely finished with delicate attention to the clean lines of the f-holes and purfling. Typical for instruments of the Gagliano family, this violin by Nicolo has poplar purfling in the center strip, with outer adjacent strips of black paper (instead of wood) to complete the traditional purfling three piece composite. The violin also bears a delicately chamfered scroll with fine detail and ears of extended length. This violin is made of a table of spruce in two pieces of dissimilar wood of fine to medium broad grain with mild figure, back of maple in one piece cut on the quarter with even medium figure ascending to the left, ribs of similar maple cut on 45o, grafted maple neck terminating in an original maple pegbox and scroll with medium fine figure, and a semi-transparent yellow-brown varnish.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 1750
• maker: Gagliano, Nicolo
• Object Name: violin
• Physical Description: spruce (table material)
• Physical Description: maple (back material)
• Measurements: overall: 23 1/2 in x 8 7/16 in x 3 7/8 in; 59.69 cm x 21.43125 cm x 9.8425 cm
• Place Made: Italy: Campania, Naples
• ID Number: MI.73.42
• accession number: 306526
• catalog number: 73.42
• Credit Line: Veterans Administration Hospital
• 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.