Polish school (attributed to Dankwart)

Instrument: violin

Classification: 3 Chordophones / 32 Composite chordophones / 321 Lutes / 321.3 Handle lutes / 321.32 Necked lutes / 321.322 Necked box lutes or necked guitars / 321.322-71 Necked box lutes or necked guitarswith a bow

Violin maker: unknown / Dankwart [?]

Date: 1st half of the 18th c.

Country: Poland

Owner: Music Instrument Museum (department of the National Museum in Poznań)

Inventory number: MNP I 235

Provenance: former property of Jadwiga Siedlecka from Radość near Warsaw, from 1938 held by the National Museum in Warsaw, stolen by the end of WWII, found in 1946 in Gdańsk with reworked f-holes and without the maker’s label, transferred to the Music Instrument Museum in Poznań; in the 20th c. attributed to Baltazar Dankwart I

Description: two-piece spruce belly, one-piece back from bird's-eye maple with small, sparse bird's eyes (especially in the lower part), sides from the same material, neck and scroll from flame maple

Inscriptions: printed label, lost, most probably fake, reading: Baltazar DanKwart / we Wilnie Anno 1602. / Jego Król: Mości Sługa [Baltazar Dankwart in Vilnius Year 1602, His Majesty’s Servant]; corrector’s label reading: Konserwację przeprowadził / w Pracowni  Konserwatorskiej / Muzeum Narodowego w Poznaniu / Kazimierz Bendowski / art. lutnik / 1965r. [Restored by Artist Violin Maker Kazimierz Bendowski. The National Gallery’s Restoring Workshop in Poznań]

Measurements: body length 362 mm, upper bout 168 mm, middle bout 114,4 mm, lower bout 204 mm, total length 598 mm

Materials: spruce, sycamore

Violinists: Jadwiga Kaliszewska (honorable mention at the 1962 International H. Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznań)

Catalog card: Z. Szulc, Słownik lutników polskich, (Poznań 1953), pp. 42, 126–127; Polska szkoła lutnicza: instrumenty Grobliczów i Dankwartów, vol. 1, ed. P. Frankowski, Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, (Poznań 2016), pp. 17, 54; A. Knast, Nowa atrybucja skrzypiec ze zbiorów Muzeum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego w świetle badań nad polską szkołą lutniczą XVII i XVIII wieku, [in:] Zabytki muzyczne w zbiorach Muzeum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego: katalog, konteksty, album, ed. R. Suchowiejko, (Kraków 2016), p. 226

Jadwiga Kaliszewska, 1962; E. Ysaÿe, Sonata No. 4 for Solo Violin, Op. 27, III. Finale - Presto ma non troppo, Anthology © Henryk Wieniawski Musical Society of Poznań

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