Bass viol, pine and sycamore, inlaid with ivory and tortoiseshell, made by Joachim Thielke, Hamburg, about 1700

'Belly of two pieces of pine, with ivory edges and four lines of simulated purfling in black paint. Back of two pieces of sycamore, bent inwards in the upper part (with an interior strengthening bar at this point) and without a sharp angle. Wooden side linings. The root of the neck and the pegbox are carved in relief with scrollwork. The carved head is of a woman, tailpiece, attached to a hook-bar, with marquetry of ebony and boxwood with a bird and a butterfly amid scrolls. Fingerboard with fine marquetry floral scrollwork in ivory and tortoiseshell, engraved and blackened, Six dark-stained pegs.' - Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instrments , p. 6 (London, V & A Publications, 1998)

The neck and carved head appear (by eye) to be sycamore. The pegs are replacements of relatively recent date. On the neck marquetry, a metallic gold-coloured paste is visible under magnfication outlining the ivory motifs and accentuating the engraving.

This instrument was bought by the South Kensington Museum for £4 - 11 - 0. At the time the fingerboard was thought to be a later edition, but in more recent years it was thought to be the tail piece.

'In the opnion of Gunther Hellwig of Lübeck this instrument is by Joachim Thielke, including the fingerboard, but the tailpiece is by Barak Norman.' - Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instrments , p. 6 (London, V & A Publications, 1998)

The bass viol is a six-stringed instrument, often crowned with a carved female head, fitted with frets along its neck and tuned like a lute. It sounded like a softer version of the 'cello, and by about 1700 it was being played solo as well as in accompaniment in small ensembles.
This instrument was mostly made by Joachim Thielke, an important maker from Hamburg (Germany) of the early 1700s, but one of its owners replaced the original tailpiece, which would almost certainly have matched the fingerboard, with one that must have come from an English bass viol.

7360-1861