Guitar
1740 - 1760 (Made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This example was probably made in about 1750, but it underwent subsequent alterations. The peg head, bridge and possibly the neck as well are later replacements, and the instrument has been adapted to take five single strings sometime in the early 1800s. By then thicker single strings were increasingly replacing finer double string courses.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | planed and stained pine back and sides; planed pine soundboard; purfled (bordered) with ivory and rosewood; inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell marquetry; ivory ebony stringing along the back of the neck; tortoise and mother of pearl inlay along the fingerboard of the neck; ivory frets on the fingerboard. |
| Brief description | Guitar, pine body, toritoiseshell and mother-of-pearl fingerboard, Italian, about 1750. |
| Physical description | "Flat back of pine stained to resemble rosewood. Belly of two pieces of pine with double purfling in ivory and rosewood, and decorated relatively crudely with floral marquetry of mother-of-pearl and toirtoiseshell. The bridge is plain and the neck block has no slipper. There are ten ivory frets, also five on the belly. The figure-of-eight head for five single strings is a nineteenth century replacement, and the neck, only 3.5 cm wide at the nut may also not be original." - Anthony Baines:Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments (London, 1998), p. 83. |
| Dimensions |
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| Object history | This instrument formed part of the collections of Carl Engel (1818-1882) and was puchased by the museum for £2 in 1882 |
| Summary | This example was probably made in about 1750, but it underwent subsequent alterations. The peg head, bridge and possibly the neck as well are later replacements, and the instrument has been adapted to take five single strings sometime in the early 1800s. By then thicker single strings were increasingly replacing finer double string courses. |
| Bibliographic reference | Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments. (London, 1998), p. 83. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 205-1882 |
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| Record created | June 24, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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