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RCM 107 Mandolino Giovanni Smorsone, Rome, 1724 Inscriptions Handwritten label: Giovanni Smorsone / In Roma 1724 Brief description Mandolino with six double courses of gut strings Dimensions : 573½ : at front 241 : 144 : 83 : 341 Description Front of fine to medium grain; bone and ebony edging; soundhole with rose of knot pattern cut from wood of front; chip-carved border of diamond shapes; five small black-stained bars run under the rose. Original bridge of sycamore stained black, lute-form with top of engraved ?bone; finials missing. Back of thirteen hollowed ribs of ?kingwood with bone lines between ribs 2.4mm wide; edge ribs wider; remainder of back has semicircular transverse section; strengthened inside with transverse strips of parchment or vellum. Deep plain capping-strip with single bone line. The twelve lines on back continue up back of neck to pegbox; four, slightly narrower lines run up back of pegbox; further lines on sides of pegbox. Fingerboard veneered with same wood as back, and a plaque of engraved bone: cartouche containing a Phoenix and the rays of the sun, surmounted by scrolling acanthus foliage. ?Walnut core to neck and pegbox; front and back faces of pegbox veneered. Simple hook finial with ivory/ebony diagonally chequered on front face. Twelve boxwood pegs; one a replacement. Ivory nut; traces of
original fret positions and tied frets. Diameter of rose opening: 52.2mm, centre from tail: 160mm. Width of fingerboard at nut: 53.3mm, at joint 65.8mm. Bridge from tail: 56mm. Commentary The neck is held to the body by a large nail; this split the lime neck-block, probably when the instrument was made. A number of fine mandolini by Smorsone survive. The mandolino was plucked with the fingers until the later 18th century and was popular as a solo instrument in sonatas, concertos, operas and oratorios. It eventually gave place in the 19th century to the Neapolitan mandolin but a redesign in the mid-century as the mandolino Lombardo or Milanese led to a revival. Provenance Gift of Sir George Donaldson, 1894 References Donaldson 1896, pl.XXX Baines 1966, p.34 & ill. Galpin 1968, p.81 Wells 1984, p.13 Morey 1993, pp.23–30 & ills. p.24
Mandolino, Giovanni Smorsone, RCM 107: lower end
Mandolino, Giovanni Smorsone, RCM 107: detail of rose 70
Mandolino, Giovanni Smorsone, RCM 107: detail of label