Katarina Guarneri
Biographies
John Dilworth
GUARNERI, Katarina Born circa. 1700, d. after 1748 Vienna Austria Wife of Bartolomeo Giuseppe ‘del Gesù’, whom she married in 1722. Her family name was Rota, and she probably came to Cremona with the Austrian army. Speculation that she may have assisted her husband in the workshop or made some instruments in her own right stems from F. J. Fetis’ published account (1856) of Cremonese oral traditions to that effect. De Picollelis (1885) refers to violins with her manuscript label, but only one printed ticket, somewhat surprisingly found in a viola, has been published [Henley, following Petherick, 1905]; the original has not yet been verified. The label has some credibility since the documentary evidence of Katarina’s name and identity was only discovered in the late 20th century; in earlier publications there is speculation that she was the sister of del Gesù. The remaining difficulty is that the date given on the label is 1749. After del Gesù’s death in 1744 she remarried in 1748 and seems to have left the city in that year. It is certainly plausible that, since the couple had no children, Katarina may have assisted in the workshop. Any instruments bearing her name, although this would seem very unlikely according to the customs of the time, would very likely have been later relabelled and sold as the work of del Gesù. Katarina Guarneria Fecit / Cremone Anno 1749 I.H.S.
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