Guitar, rosewood back and sides, pine soundboard, by Angelo Benedetto Ventura (?), English, after 1851.

'Variant form with scalloped outline. Back of two pieces of rosewood. Belly of two pieces of pine, with three small soundholes arranged in a triangle, each surrounded by inlaid decoration. The strings pass over a loose bridge to attachment at a fixed pin bridge placed immediately below. Neck block with slipper. The raised rosewood fingerboard has eighteen frets of flat brass and nine position dots. The broad wedge-shaped head has machines for six strings'. Anthony Baines, Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments. (London, 1998), pp. 62-63.

Given to the Museum by Carl Engel

Thia instrument was given to the Museum by Carl Engel (1818-1882), an eminent musicologist from Hanover, who published the Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum in 1874. The South Kensington Museum has been known as the Victoria & Albert Museum since 1899.

This variant guitar, known as the New English Cetra, was patented in 1851 by Angelo Benedetto Ventura (c.1781-1856). He was the inventor of a number of harp and lute variants, which he taught to Princess Charlotte (1786-1817), daughter of the Prince Regent. Ventura boasted of the cetra'ssplendid powerful tone and stated in his prospectus that it was 'far more superior than the Spanish Guitar' [sic]. However, despite such heady claims, this curiosity failed to surpass the Spanish guitar in popularity.

373-1882