English or German, about 1840 ? with a figure-of-eight body.

'Body in figure-of-eight shape. High-arched belly in one piece of pine, rising immediately from the edges; triple purfling (bordering) and f-holes with very small top circles. Back of one piece of sycamore or maple, triple purfled, with a repair at the left shoulder. Inside body, thin side linings, canvas strips at the two indentations, and a shallow bass bar. The neck, attached by a nail, is set in line with the belly edges and upon it is a packing wedge which has been reduced in thickness to take the modern finger-board. The scroll, quite well carved, has wide corkscrew spirals projecting each side. Ebony tailpiece and fingerboard.'
Anthony Baines, Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments (London, 1998), p. 17.

This instrument was once part of the collections of Carl Engel (1818 - 1882). It was valued at £3, when acquired by the South Kensington Museum.

Anthony Baines says "Possibly German; seventeenth - eighteenth century'. Its figure-of-eight shape is similar to a French cither-viol of about 1830 - 1840, and may have been made at about that time, when luthiers like Thomas Howell made violins of unorthodox shapes.

This instrument has a spurious label, but it may have been made some time between about 1830 and 1850, when violin makers such as Thomas Howell were making violins and guitars in the form of a pear and other unorthodox shapes. This eccentric example with its lobed figure-of-eight form was seldom copied anywhere else.

159-1882