About

This project explores bow holds for the violin and adjacent da braccio string instruments (e.g. rebec, vielle, lira da braccio, viola d'amore, etc.) Iconography of bass instruments in da spalla positions such as the Angel at the Sanctuary of Madonna delle Grazie in Crema is considered, while images of instruments in various da gamba postures, such as Guido Reni's Saint Cecilia with the violin in vertical position, are excluded.

Images lacking a date of creation are designated as "circa; based on artist dates." The numerical range given is the artist's 30th year to year of death.

This catalog is a companion database to an article in progress, "'Manner true artists do not approve of': Reappraising Seventeenth-Century Violin Bows Holds and Iconography." Portions of this project has been presented as a lecture recital and paper respectively at the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music Annual Conference (Cleveland, USA, 2023) and the Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music (Geneva, Switzerland, 2023).

Addi Liu is a baroque violinist and researcher based in Ithaca, New York.