A Nineteenth-Century Italian Workshop of Neo-Late Medieval Ivory Instruments
Résumé
Among six ivory instruments (two tromba marina, two bows, a viola da braccio, a rebec) preserved in the musée de la Musique in Paris and coming from the Comte Henry de Ganay collection, one Ivory lute shows very similar features with a specimen preserved in Vermillion (S.D. USA) and with another one in Charles Beare’s collection.
In 2009 appeared for sale in Florence (Casa d’Aste Pandolfini) five other instruments in ivory, at least three of them (a tromba marina, a rebec, a luth) with very similar features to those already mentioned. This paper will propose the list of the instruments known today and pertaining to this specific production, it will try to trace some of the iconographical sources used by this workshop, to analyses the un-historical building details the instruments, to suggest a geographic origin of this production, to understand the purpose of these attempts (musical attempts? applied archeology? Forgery for collectors?).