Fergus Gambon
Director
Lot 111
The celebrated Mackintosh Viola da Gamba Player Toby Jug from the 'Midshipman Family', circa 1785
5 June 2019, 10:30 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £27,562.50 inc. premium
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Anna Burnside
Head of Sale
The celebrated Mackintosh Viola da Gamba Player Toby Jug from the 'Midshipman Family', circa 1785
Attributed to Jacob Marsh, the musician seated with his fiddle-sized viol placed between his legs and playing it with a bow in the manner of a cello, wearing a blue and manganese-brown striped coat that matches the handle of the jug, his blue-spotted waistcoat revealing a white necktie, green breeches above green-and-blue socks, his hair tied with a rosette bow, the viol da gamba picked out in blue and the bow and his shoes in manganese-brown, 18.3cm high
Footnotes
Provenance
S Hooker Collection
Lord Mackintosh of Halifax Collection
Sotheby's sale 2 May 1967, lot 65 (£350)
Christie's sale 6 July 2006, lot 1152
Illustrated by John Bedford, Toby Jugs (1968), p.10 (centre)
Unlike the violin or fiddle, which is held under the chin, all members of the viol family are played upright and are held between the legs like a modern cello, hence the Italian name viola da gamba which means 'viol for the leg'. Although the scale is rather too small, the potter has attempted to depict an instrument that is differently-shaped to that on the Fiddler Toby jugs.
According to the Mackintosh catalogue and to Vic Schuler's list updated in 1999, only one other example of this Toby jug is recorded, in the Burnap Collection and this doesn't include a viola da gamba.
