slap stick: Museum Object and Cultural History
slap stick: Object Name: Slapstick. Object Name: slap stick. Object Name: slapstick.
The object in the museum catalogue
Wooden clapper or slap stick. The device is made of two wooden slats joined at one end used to produce a sound. It can be used as a percussive instrument in music or in theater to produce sound effects. The genre of “slapstick” humor gets its name from the mechanism, as the instrument has been used to emphasize loud slaps or blows in exaggerated physical comedies dating back to 16th Century Italian commedia dell’arte .
Materials, dates and provenance
- Object Name: Slapstick
- Object Name: slap stick
- Object Name: slapstick
- Object Name: clapper
- Physical Description: pine (overall material)
- Physical Description: paint, varnish (overall material)
- Physical Description: adhesive (overall material)
- Measurements: overall: 19 1/2 in x 1 7/8 in x 1 in; 49.53 cm x 4.7625 cm x 2.54 cm
- Subject: Vaudeville
- Subject: Comedy
- web subject: Entertainment
- Subject: Theater
- Subject: Humor
- ID Number: 1977.1006.01
- accession number: 1977.1006
- catalog number: 1977.1006.01
- Credit Line: Gift of Ellen Roney Hughes
- 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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