Violin

Chukchee People

ca. 1800–1889 · Pinewood · Musical Instruments

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)

Artist

Chukchee People

Date

ca. 1800–1889

Medium

Pinewood

Culture

Russian (Siberia)

Department

Musical Instruments

Credit line

The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889