Violin

ca. 1800–1889
Not on view
This instrument was acquired by Waldemar Bogoras, an exiled Russian revolutionary, from a Chuckchee musician in Siberia. Bogoras and his wife Sofia engaged in ethnographic and linguistic studies with peoples on the western side of the Bering Strait. He was accompanied on his fieldwork expeditions by his wife Sofia Bogoras who acted as a photographer. His collection went to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, from which Mary Elizabeth Brown acquired this instrument around 1905.

Technical description: Folk violin with bow. Flat (slightly bent) one-piece pinewood top. Back, ribs, and neck carved from one piect of wood. Two S-shaped soundholes. Pinewood fingerboard. Bridge missing. Accompanying bow. (Karel Moens, 1991)

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Violin
  • Culture: Chukchee People
  • Date: ca. 1800–1889
  • Geography: Bering Strait, Russia
  • Culture: Russian (Siberia)
  • Medium: Pinewood
  • Dimensions: Length: 22 3/4 in. (57.8 cm)
    Body Length: 13 in. (33 cm)

    Width Upper bout: 6 7/8 in. (17.4 cm)
    Width Middle bout: 5 3/16 in. (13.2 cm)
    Width Lower bout: 7 3/8 in. (18.7 cm)

    Rib Height: approximately 1 3/16 in. (3 cm)


    17.1 x 3.8 x 57.8cm (6 3/4 x 1 1/2 x 22 3/4in.)
  • Classification: Chordophone-Lute-plucked-unfretted
  • Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889
  • Object Number: 89.4.3452a, b
  • Curatorial Department: Musical Instruments

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