This violin was made by Nicolo Amati in Cremona, Italy in 1656. Nicolo Amati (1596–1684) was from the third generation of the famous Amati family in Cremona. The son of Hieronymous I, he is commonly regarded as the greatest maker of the family. Nicolo took over the business on his father’s death in 1630, a time when Cremona was devastated by famine followed by the plague. The only remaining maker of any consequence in Italy, his survival assured the craft of violin making in Cremona would endure.
In 1949 Emil Herrmann writes that “the back and table are decorated with double purfling and inlaid fleur de lys which, on the table, are inset with rubies and emeralds,” and this violin “was made to order for the Royal Family of France, most probably for King Louis XIV.” Computed Tomography scans indicate these gem stones are actually the density of glass, and while it now bears the Louis XIV attribution assigned by Herrmann, there is no documentation of the violin’s association to French royalty.
Nicolò Amati Violin: the "King Louis XIV"
- Description
This violin was made by Nicolò Amati in Cremona, Italy in 1656. It is the King Loius XIV violin with a top of spruce with grain of narrow width, one-piece back of slab cut maple with medium width flame mostly horizontal, ribs and volute of quarter sawn maple with narrower flame, double purfling to the top and back, mastic fleur-de-lys inlays to the corners of the top and back and to the rib joints, and varnish of a golden-brown color over a golden ground. There is an original printed label inside the instrument:
Nicolaus Amatus Cremonen. Hieronymi
Fil. ac Antonij Nepos Fecit. 1656["56" is handwritten]
This violin has also been known as the “Youssoupoff” (see
- The Strad magazine, March 1967, pages 410-433). The earliest
- known owner is Jean Baptiste Vuillaume who bought the violin at
- a London sale in 1855, and then sold it to the Russian nobleman,
- Prince Nicholas Yousoupoff. As a student of the violin, Prince
- Yousoupoff studied under Henry Vieuxtemps; he composed music
- and even wrote a history of the violin.
Another Strad magazine article in August 1983 documents
- the violin was again sold by J.B. Vuillaume on 8 February 1862 to
- Mr. Liodor de Panajeff of Moscow. The next known owner is the
- violin dealer Emil Herrmann who assembled a quartet of Amati
- instruments (the 1656 King Louis XIV and the 1672 Florian Zajic violins, the 1663 Professor Wirth viola, and the 1677 Herbert violoncello) for Mrs. Anna E. Clark. She lent them to the Loewenguth Quartet of Brussels before bequeathing the quartet to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. The Corcoran loaned the quartet to the Claremont String Quartet of the North Carolina School of the Arts, and in 1966, this violin was stolen. Its fate remained a mystery until the New York dealer, Jacques Français, came upon the instrument in 1971 and promptly returned it to the Corcoran.
Beginning in 1975, the Corcoran loaned the instruments
- to the Tokyo String Quartet, and then to the Takács Quartet before
- selling them to Dr. Herbert Axelrod in 1998.
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- maker
- Amati, Nicolo
- Date made
- 1656
- Credit Line
- Gift of Evelyn and Herbert R. Axelrod
- Physical Description
- spruce (overall material)
- maple (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 24 in x 8 3/8 in x 3 1/2 in; 60.96 cm x 21.2725 cm x 8.89 cm
- Object Name
- violin
