CO-REF-02 · Viol
Division viol labelled Richard Meares, ca. 1680
ca. 1680 · Labelled Richard Meares; authorship not straightforward · United States (present holding)
Cited from a public museum record so that a real example stands beside the invented ones. Nobody has been approached and nothing has been proposed.
Research interest
The label inside this instrument names a maker. The museum's own research indicates that the label does not settle the question: on structural and stylistic grounds the instrument was likely begun in a different workshop, left unfinished when that maker died, and possibly completed and labelled by a successor using his father's label. Dendrochronology of the belly contributes to the dating.
I include it because it is the cleanest real example I have found of a distinction this registry depends on. A label is a claim. A claim is evidence about the person who made it. It is not, by itself, a provenance.
Everyone who suggests an object to us will send the label. That is right and useful. It is simply not the end of the question.
Documentation
- Museum object record
- Public. Object images are open access; modern performance audio on the page is link only.