Vienna, Austria
Alfred Coletti

Wood, metal strings
ca. 1926
Back Length: 14.75 in; Total length: 32.25 in; Width: 9.38 in; Depth: 2.2 in
Strings – Lutes – Violin Family

Viola d’amore, inside label: Alfred Coletti. / k.u.k. hof – Geigenmacher / in Wien. / Anno 22. Mai 1926.  
Maker’s mark etched 3 places into outside wood: (Logo) / A.G. COLETTI 
Main Bridge: etched *A (tree logo) M*         

A viola d’amore made by Alfred Coletti (1878–c.1929) from Vienna, Austria. Coletti was a pupil of Carl Hermann Voigt from 1892-1904.  In 1904, he joined the firm of Hamberger and took over the workshop the following year.  Coletti was a renowned Viennese luthier and restorer, often called the “Viennese Stradivari”.  He became official violin maker of the Viennese court by 1906, where he was responsible for the large collection of ancient stringed instruments.  His own original works (including this viola d’ amore) were highly finished, utilizing reclaimed 16th-century timber from local sites, and were well covered with deep orange varnish. 

The viola d’amore shares many features of the viol family, a bowed box-lute chordophone of Renaissance Europe. This viola d’amore has seven sympathetic strings below the main strings and fingerboard, which are not directly played, and seven playing strings above them.  Like all viols, this viola d’amore has a flat back.

An intricately carved head of a women with a bonnet/hat is at the top of the peg box.  The sound-holes are in the shape of a flaming sword known as “The Flaming Sword of Islam” (suggesting the instrument’s development was influenced by the Islamic World). This was one of the three usual sound hole shapes for viols as well.  It is unfretted and played much like a violin, being held horizontally under the chin. The first unambiguous reference to a viola d’amore with sympathetic strings does not occur until the 1730s.

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_d%27amore