Harp-lute, English, 1811-1815, Edward Light

Harp lute with a body of seven ribs, with two sound slots in the centre rib. Belly painted black and decorated with gilt scrollwork. An inserted carved rose of star shape, and a tied bridge. The neck, rising from the treble side of the body, has a wide fingerboard with eight ivory frets and three nuts. The lowest nut is for the treble string only, the next is for four strings, and the highest is for two, there being seven fingerboard strings in all. Five longer strings run from a swan-necked bar or 'harmonic curve' supported at one end by the neck and at the other by the pillar which rises from the opposite side of the body. Each but the longest of these five strings can be raised a semitone by turning a brass blade or 'ring stop' having a hole in it through which the string normally passes clear. The blades are turned by the player's right hand save for that for the shortest of these strings, which is turned by the left thumb through a linkage of rods and cranks. The twelve strings are of gut and overspun silk, and all are tuned by wrest pins.

Edward Light (about 1747-about 1832) was an active inventor and composer who developed a number of stringed instruments based upon the harp and guitar, and wrote tutors for these instruments between about 1798 and 1820. In 1810 he invented the harp-lute, which soon became a fashionable instrument for ladies. Light's main patron was Princess Charlotte (1796-1817), the daughter of the Prince Regent. The instrument had 12 strings, seven of which could be played on the fingerboard, and five bass strings, four of which could be raised a semi-tone, by turning a blade or tangent called a 'ring stop'.

37-1873