The Old Violin
William Harnett1886
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
_The Old Violin_ is one of Harnett's most famous paintings. The subject is deceptively simple; a violin, a sheet of music, a small newspaper clipping, and a blue envelope are shown against a background formed by a green wooden door.
The painting is also a work of multi–layered meanings involving the relationships between illusion and reality, between old and new, and between the momentary and the enduring. At the heart of such meanings is the transience of time, which the artist illustrated by showing signs of wear and age throughout the painting. Even the songs, one from Bellini's _La Sonnambula_, and the other the popular song "Helas, Quelle Douleur", are concerned with temporal change. But it is the violin itself, now mute, but worn with use and still dusted with rosin, that speaks most evocatively of past pleasures.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I_, pages 257-266, which is available as a free PDF at https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-19th-century-part-1.pdf
- Title: The Old Violin
- Creator: William Michael Harnett
- Date Created: 1886
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 96.5 x 60 cm (38 x 23 5/8 in.) framed: 119.7 x 84.1 x 5.1 cm (47 1/8 x 33 1/8 x 2 in.)
- Provenance: Purchased 1886 at Cincinnati Industrial Exhibition by Frank Tuchfarber, Cincinnati;[1] mortgaged and forfeited 1912 to Atlas National Bank, Cincinnati;[2] sold to William M. Haas, Cincinnati; offered c. 1934-1937 in lieu of a loan payment to Charles Finn Williams [d. 1952], Cincinnati;[3] his wife, Elizabeth R. Williams, Cincinnati; transferred c. 1955-1957 to her son, William J. Williams, Cincinnati; sold 1990 to (James Maroney, New York); purchased 1993 by NGA. [1] See "The Art Gallery," _Cincinnati Commercial Gazette_, 16 September 1886, for the information that Harnett's painting "sold as soon as it was unpacked [in Cincinnati], and at his own price." Alfred Frankenstein (_After the Hunt: William Harnett and Other American Still Life Painters 1870-1900_, rev. ed., Berkeley, California, 1969: 78) names Tuchfarber as the original purchaser and disputes the legend that arose in the early twentieth century ("Found -- A Celebrated American painting," _Mansfield News Journal_ [Ohio], 3 November 1934) of the painting having been previously purchased by Edward Stokes, a New York hotelier. When _The Old Violin_ was owned by William Haas, however, it did hang in a lodging house, the Cincinnati Parkview Hotel. [2] The original loan agreement, with _The Old Violin_ as collateral, is in NGA curatorial files. [3] Two statements by William J. Williams, 17 May 1990 and 15 March 1993, in NGA curatorial files, give provenance information.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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