Music & Musical Instruments

This flageolet was made by Henry Hastrick in London, England, around 1835-1855. It is a double flageolet in B-flat, made of boxwood with an ivory beak, head, studs, and ferrules, and nickel silver keys. This instrument is stamped:

HASTRICK
LATE
BAINBRIDGE
INVENTOR
35
HOLBORN
HILL
LONDON
NEW
PATENT

Henry (Thomas) Hastrick (b?-1854) was a flageolet maker in London. In 1814, Hastrick began an apprenticeship with flageolet maker William Bainbridge. Upon Bainbridge’s death in 1835, Hastrick acquired the business from Bainbridge’s widow, Harriet. The business continued until Hastrick’s death in 1854.

This banjo was made by William Boucher, Jr. in Baltimore, Maryland in 1847. It is a Five-String Fretless Banjo, with a wood shell, gold painted metal hoop, 14 brackets, and friction pegs. Stamped on back of the neck:

W.BOUCHER.JR
BALTIMORE

William Boucher was a drum maker and musical instrument dealer in Baltimore, Maryland. He became the first commercial maker of banjos, perhaps through his association with the celebrated minstrel banjoist Joel Walker Sweeney.

His instruments were important in standardizing the form of the banjo in its transition from a homemade rural instrument to urban commercial manufacture. The basic shape and string arrangement has changed little up to the present day. Boucher’s design copied important features of earlier home-made African American instruments: the skin head, short thumb string and fretless neck. He added a scrolled peghead similar to those used by guitar makers W. Stauffer and C. F. Martin, and replaced the traditional gourd body with a thin, bentwood rim construction with screw-tightening brackets similar to that used for drumheads. Boucher’s innovations were well-adapted to commercial mass-production and urban musical tastes and played a large part in the subsequent worldwide enthusiasm for the banjo.

These commercial “improvements” were never adopted by many traditional rural musicians, who continued to make good sounding instruments that were entirely adequate for their musical needs from locally available materials, at little or no expense.

This harpsichord was made by Nicolaus De Quoco in Florence, Italy in 1694. It is a single manual harpsichord with a compass of C - c3 (no C#), and a disposition of 2 x 8’, 1 x 4’, with ornate iron hand stops. The harpsichord has a spruce soundboard, a carved cartouche on nameboard and keywell end blocks, and boxwood-covered naturals and ebony-covered accidentals with boxwood inlay. The the wrestplank is inscribed:

NICOLAUS DE QUOCO FECIT ANNO MDCLXXXXIII.

The separable outer case is painted dark green with scroll designs and birds in orange and yellow colors on top. The interior of the cover is painted with a scene probably representing Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

Typical Italian harpsichords were of much lighter construction than those made in northern Europe - the sides of the case were only about an eighth of an inch thick. These fragile instruments were usually placed in heavier, often elaborately decorated, outer cases from which the harpsichord could be removed.

Little is known of Nicolaus De Quoco except that he lived and worked in Florence. According to Italian harpsichord specialist, Dr. Denzil Wraight, this may be the only authentic instrument by De Quoco.

Restored to playing condition 1961-1965, by William Post Ross from the shop of Frank Hubbard, this De Quoco harpsichord is currently used in concerts and featured on recordings by the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society.

Recordings currently available can be found at the following link:

www.smithsonianchambermusic.org

This flute was made by Johann Ziegler in Vienna, Austria around 1821 to 1830. It is a 6-keyed flute made of boxwood with horn ferrules and brass keys. The flute is stamped:

I. ZIEGLER

Johann Joseph Ziegler (1795-1858) was born in Hungary and by 1821 established himself as a wind instrument maker in Vienna. Ziegler was one of the more prolific makers of the era and displayed his instruments at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. In a catalog listing from the exhibition, Ziegler sold flutes made of cocoa-nut wood with case for 120 florins.

This clarinet was made by an unknown maker, possibly Italy around 1850 to 1890. It is an 11-keyed clarinet in B-flat, made of brass.

George Brown Goode, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, acquired this clarinet with other musical instruments in Rome, Italy in 1892.

This kit was made by Henry Jay in London, England, about 1750. It is made of a one-piece table of spruce, body carved from one piece of maple cut on 45o slab, painted ink representation of purfling on table and back, neck “V” grafted to an 18th-century English neck, pegbox and closed scroll with one volute; two bone pegs for the “e” and “a” strings are probably original, and orange-brown varnish. This instrument has a handwritten label fragment:

Hen J
Lon[i]n 52[ ]

In 18th-century England, “kit” was used to describe an instrument with a small violin body and a long neck, used in the same manner as a pochette, or dancemaster’s fiddle. This instrument was probably made by Henry Jay who worked in London, from 1740 to 1776, and specialized in the kit. This maker is not to be confused with Henry Jay of Southwarke (1615-1667), the famous English viol maker.

This sheet music is for the song “Hong Kong Blues,” with words and music by Hoagy Carmichael. It was published by Larry Spier, Inc. in New York, New York in 1939. There is an inset image of Hoagy Carmichael on the cover.

”Hong Kong Blues” was featured in the 1944 Warner Bros. romance-war-adventure film, To Have and Have Not, directed by Howard Hawks and starred Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Moran, and Hoagy Carmichael.

This violin was made in Mirecourt, France around 1880 This commercial Mirecourt violin was inspired by J.B. Vuillaume of Paris, who began making ornamental violins with carved male heads after 1829 (see catalog #1992.0388.01). In this example, a plain commercial Mirecourt instrument with the addition of a carved male head is marketed by J. Howard Foote in New York City, where it appears in his 1882 catalog, “Nos. 5943 Copy of Gaspard Duiffo Pruggar, superior quality, carved head and corners, plain ebony trimmings ... $15.00 each.”

Carved bearded male heads made in Paris and Mirecourt were taken from a famous 1565 engraving of Gaspar Tieffenbrucker, surrounded by a group of bowed and plucked instruments and his tools. He was born in Bavaria in 1514, was trained and Guild-certified as a lute and instrument maker in Füssen, and then immigrated to France, where he established workshops in Lyon in 1533 and became famous for his viols and other bowed and plucked instruments. He continued working in Lyon until his death in 1571, after which his son Gaspar Tieffenbrucker the younger moved to Paris and continued in his father's tradition as an instrument maker. This violin has a reproduction Gaspar da Salo label and is made of a two-piece table of spruce, two-piece back of maple with irregular, medium descending figure, ribs of similar maple, neck of mildly figured maple with pegbox and carved male head, and a yellow-orange varnish.

This zither was made by and unknown maker in Germany, around 1878-1882, and sold by the J. Howard Foote Company in New York and Chicago. It is made from rosewood, finely inlaid around the edges, with 30 strings, metal tuning pins, and with a patent head.

John Howard Foote (1833-1896) was a musical instrument dealer with shops in New York City and Chicago. This instrument listed in an 1880 J. Howard Foote catalog, sold as a zither (#6037), for $21.25.

This ocarina was made by Rudolf Teschner in New York State, around 1878 to 1882, and sold by the J. Howard Foote Company in New York and Chicago. It is an ocarina made of black glazed pottery, with 8 fingerholes and 1 thumbhole. This instrument is stamped:

R TESCHNER

John Howard Foote (1833-1896) was a musical instrument dealer with shops in New York City and Chicago. This instrument is J. Howard Foote item #7204.

This violin bow was made by and unknown maker in Germany, about 1880, and sold by the J. Howard Foote Company in New York and Chicago. It is a Viullaume nodel violin bow, with a round Brazilwood stick with celluloid face, full nickel silver lined ebony frog with underslide, plain pearl eyes with nickel silver rings, plain pearl slide, ebony button with two nickel silver rings, and a pearl eye.

This bow is stamped:

VUILLAUME A PARIS

John Howard Foote (1833-1896) was a musical instrument dealer with shops in New York City and Chicago. This instrument listed in an 1880 J. Howard Foote catalog, sold as a Vuillaume model violin bow (#6160), for $21.60 per dozen.

This chalkware statue of American jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was made by Esco Products, Inc. in New York, circa 1972. The statue depicts Armstrong in a burgundy jacket with white shirt, black bowtie, pants and shoes, holding a trumpet in his right hand and a handkerchief in his left hand. As in many of Esco’s celebrity statues, the heads are exaggerated in size.

The statue was given to American jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald and is inscribed on the bottom of the statue, “FROM PHOEBE.”