Exhibits at the Collection

At the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, it’s easy to see and appreciate the art of the luthier. The Collection is home to a selection of string instruments from the Italian, German, French, and English schools of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and includes the Steinert and Skinner collections, the extensive Emil Herrmann collection, and other individual donations. Many of the violin family instruments in the Collection are in playing condition, as are some of the viols and plucked-string instruments. Some highlights of the string instrument collection include violins by Nicolò Amati, Andrea Guarneri, Antonio Stradivari, and Jakob Steiner, a viola by Lorenzo Storioni, a viola d’amore by Joseph Gagliano, viols by Pietro Guarneri of Mantua and Richard Meares, a lute by Sebastian Schelle, and guitars by Joachim Tielke and Antonio de Torres.

Over the past four decades, the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments has been actively seeking to acquire wind instruments. The Collection’s holdings now include many 19th century American wind instruments, in addition to a core collection of instruments built by important 18th and 19th century European makers. Highlights include a Deutsche schalmei by Richard Haka, oboes by Jacob Denner, Johann Ferdinand Floth, and Guillaume Triébert, cors anglais by Henri Brod and Guillaume Triébert, flageolets by William Bainbridge, and Firth, Pond & Co., flutes by Thomas Cahusac, Sr., Thomas Stanesby, Jr., and Asa Hopkins, clarinets by Martin Frères and Johann Tobias Uhlmann, bassoons by William Milhouse, and Martin Lempp, a natural trumpet by Michael Sauerle, Sr., a circular cornet by Graves & Co., and a serpent by D’Almaine & Co.

The Collection’s holdings of percussion instruments include the Robyna Neilson Ketchum Collection of Bells, which was acquired in 1975 and contains more than 180 bells, gongs, clappers, temple blocks, and rattles from around the world. The Collection is also home to late-18th century military drums from France and the United States, a West African kalangu (a double-headed hourglass drum), a Chinese hua gu (“flower drum”), a set of mid-19th century American minstrel bones, and an English town-crier’s bell.

The Collection first acquired a small number of Asian instruments from the Belle Skinner Collection in 1960. Since then, the Collection’s holdings have steadily grown to include instruments from the indigenous cultures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Additionally, the Robyna Neilson Ketchum Collection of Bells contains bells from around the world. The Collection aims to increase its holdings by acquiring more instruments from various cultures.