Autograph cut slip with musical bar and quotation by Giorgio Ronconi dated 1842

RONCONI, Giorgio (1810–1890), Italian baritone. Autograph musical quotation and signature on a cut slip, Dublin, 10 November 1842.
 
Small oblong slip (approx. 100 × 65 mm), on paper, bearing in ink a short notated vocal phrase on a five-line stave, with the words “Là ci darem la mano” beneath, the opening line of the celebrated duet from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Signed centrally by Giorgio Ronconi, with place and date below in Italian form “Dublin li 10/11 842”, i.e. 10 November 1842. Also signed at lower right by his duet partner Christiana Welles. Age-toning, and a fleck missing from left edge, otherwise in about very good condition.
 
Ronconi was one of the foremost baritones of the mid-nineteenth century, closely associated with the role of Don Giovanni, which he sang throughout Britain and Ireland during the 1840s. The quoted phrase is the opening of the Act I duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina, and the presence of the second signature strongly suggests that Christiana Welles was the soprano who sang the role of Zerlina with Ronconi in Dublin during this season, the slip functioning as a contemporary autograph souvenir of that performance and partnership.