Music & Musical Instruments

This violin was made by Antonio Stradivari in Cremona, Italy, about 1700. It is the Greffuhle violin with a two-piece table of spruce with even medium fine grain broadening toward the sides, one-piece back of maple with narrow, nearly horizontal figure, ribs of similar maple, modern maple neck terminating in the original pegbox and scroll of similar maple, and golden red-brown varnish. This instrument has an original printed label, with altered date:

Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonenfis
Faciebat Anno 1709

[*709 handwritten]

A brief history of the Greffuhle is cited in this excerpt from a letter in 1960 to Hug & Co. in Switzerland from W. E. Hill & Sons, the highly respected British firm of violin dealers and experts.

The history of the Stradivari violin dated 1709, known as the “Greffuhle”, is, as far as it is known to us, as follows. The particulars given are from the notes made by the late Mr. Alfred Hill, who had known the instrument since boyhood days.

About 1880 Laurie took the instrument to Paris and sold it through the intermediary of Gand to the Visconte de Greffuhle in 1882. It was sold by the Visconte to Caressa in 1910 and later passed into the possession of the firm Hamma & Co. of Stuttgart. The firm of Hamma in turn sold it to Herr Walter of Bohemia, and in later years he sold it to your firm. Reference to this violin is made in “Violins and Violin Makers” by J. Pearce.

Hug & Co. sold the Greffuhle in 1962 to Carl Tannewitz of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jacques Français bought the violin at auction in 1977 and sold it to Herbert Axelrod in 1979.

There is a compilation of measurements of the Greffuhle violin by Gabriela Guadalajara available from the collections files. Computer Tomography (CT) scans were made of the entire instrument, courtesy of Bruno Frohlich, Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.

The Greffuhle violin is part of The Herbert R. Axelrod Quartet of Decorated Instruments by Antonio Stradivari, consisting of the Ole Bull violin,1687; the Greffuhle violin, c.1700; the Axelrod viola, 1695; and the Marylebone violoncello, 1688.

This violin was made by Albert Moglie in Washington, DC in 1923. It is patterned after instruments made by Venetian luthier, Sanctus Serephin (1699-1776).

Albert Moglie (b. Dec. 16, 1890, Rome; d. June 9, 1988, Washington DC) operated a violin shop in Washington DC for 65 years from 1922 until 1987. At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to Antonio Sgarbi; he then worked under Luigi Enbergher, Giuseppe Rossi and Rodolfo Fredi, all of Rome. He later was a student of Hippolyte Sylvestre in Paris and Leandro Bisiach in Milan.

Albert Moglie came to America at the age of 24 to work for the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, first in Cincinnati and then New York City in 1916. By 1917 he had established his own shop in New York at 1431 Broadway. He moved to Washington DC in 1922.

Moglie enjoyed a fine reputation in Washington as a violin restorer, and is especially remembered as the caretaker of the Gertrude Clark Whittall Stradivari quartet of instruments at the Library of Congress, an association that began in the 1930s and lasted more than 50 years.

The Smithsonian, National Museum of American History, Archives Center houses additional materials on the life and career of Albert F. Moglie:

Albert F. Moglie Violinist and Violin-Making Collection

This violin was made by the Kiso Suzuki Violin Company Ltd. in Fukushima, Kiso, Japan in 1973. The earliest makers of violins in Japan were Sadajiro Matunaga and Masakichi Suzuki (b.1859–d.1944). Both were trained as shamisen makers and began making violins based on instruments brought to Japan toward the end of the 19th century from Western sources, using Japanese pine and maple and sometimes sycamore. In 1880, proceeding with a Westernization policy, the Japanese government had instituted teacher training programs for lessons in piano, organ, and violin. There is a printed label inside the instrument:

Kiso Suzuki Violin Co., Ltd
Copy of Antonius Stradivarus 1720
Anno 1973 ¾ No.7 Japan
[Kiso Suzuki Trademark]

Masakichi Suzuki established the Suzuki violin manufacturing firm in Nagoya in 1887, adding guitars and mandolins to the firm's production in 1903. The firm received an award at the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1910, and Masakichi was further cited in 1917 by the Japanese government with a Medal of Honor for his accomplishments in the violin industry. At this time his company was producing thousands of violins each year.

The “S” logo is employed in the label of this ¾ violin with semi-transparent, dark reddish-brown varnish and ink representation of purfling. The fittings are of dark hardwood, with the fingerboard also stained black to give the appearance of ebony. The spruce and maple are probably local Japanese woods, with interior linings and blocks of a light material similar to basswood.