The tambura is a string instrument, widely used in Turkey, Bulgaria and Bosnia. This example, the Turkish version, has a hemispherical (rather than pear-shaped) body. It has been compared to a mandolin but is more like its long-necked version, which is known as the “colascione”. This example has four courses of double strings and would have been held horizontally and strummed with a plectrum, to accompany singing and dancing. Indeed, eighteenth century paintings illustrate such an instrument being used, in particular the 1740 painting by Orientalist painter Jean Etienne Liotard, entitled ‘Monsieur Levette and Mademoiselle Helene Glavany in Turkish Costumes’, in which the woman plays the tamboura.