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English guitar
da Silva, Jaco Vieira - Enlarge image
English guitar
- Place of origin:
Lisbon (made)
- Date:
ca. 1780 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
da Silva, Jaco Vieira (maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pine back, sides and soundboards, with pine and wood purfling (bordering); brass openwork rose, framed with mother-of-pearl
- Museum number:
208-1882
- Gallery location:
In Storage
The English guitar was a fashionable instrument from about 1750, considered easy to play and tuned in C major, although the player would use a capo, much like a modern folk-guitarist, in order to change the key. The tuning pegs were often small metallic pins that could be turned with a watch-key, to keep the strings in tune longer. This instrument was made in Portugal, a country with strong trading links with England, and its peg box is decorated with a paper 'cameo' in imitation of a jasper ware medallion, a motif made popular by Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) from about 1770.