Electrotype of a citole popularly known as the "Warwick Gittern", the original in the British Museum. The electrotype made by Giovanni Franchi & Son, London, 1866

Electrotype of a citole

Citole, c.1330-1340, with additions dated 1579. Museum number: 1963,1002.1

Citole, formerly known as a gittern, later remodelled as a violin; wood, silver gilt, glass. The original parts are the back, sides and neck; the new parts are the sound-board with vaulted profile, the finger-board, tailpiece and bridge; a silver gilt plate engraved with the Garter and arms of Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, has been placed above the pegbox. The centre part of the trefoil is a replacement. The carved decorative panels with forest scenes comprising huntsmen, foresters, animals, the end terminating in a dragon.

The gittern was made by Giovanni Franchi & Son who along with Elkington of Birmingham were the two main suppliers of electrotypes to the Museum. The Museum bought 3 copies and the type pattern which was the first copper deposit made from which subsequent copies could have their moulds made. The type patterns came to the V&A from Elkington who bought out Franchi’s business when he died in 1874. The electrotype of the gittern cost £75 at the time - most electrotypes were less than £10.

The original instrument (originally belonging to the Earl of Warwick), survives at the British Museum.

'THE WARICK VIOLIN AT SOUTH KENSINGTON'

'One of the most perfect specimens of the electrotypist's art yet executed has been lately placed among the collection at South Kensington. In the same case with an oppresively huge wine fountain, with its concomitant cistern (why were these monsters thought worthy of reproduction?), stands what to the majority of visitors will no doubt appear to be a carved wooden violin. Close inspection reveals the fact that the materials is metal, the wooden appearance being effected by brown varnish, but leaves unabated our wonder at the skill - and let us add the daring - which could venture to subject such delicate wood carvings to the process of moulding. The original object, which may be seen thoroughly un-injured in another part of the court, belongs to the Earl of Warwick, and has long been known for its singularity of form and richness of decoration. It has been figured and described in Sir John Hawkin's "History of Music." The descriptive label attached to the two objects assigns to the original date of 1330-40, with additions made in 1579. Despite the minuteness of this statement, and admitting that the foliage with which the sides are covered much resembles the Gothic spandrels of the fourteenth cenutry, we have great doubts whether at that early period such delicate carving had been applied to musical instruments, and can trace no evidence whatever of subsequent additions to the original design. The decorations all adapt themselves with accuracy to the irregular outlines of the form, and the combined evidence of the shields of Queen Elizabeth and of Leicester on the silver-gilt plate of the neck, the habitat of Kenilworth Castle, and the date which we presume to exist somewhere, all induce us to consider this unusual variety of the genus fiddle to be a work of the sixteenth century. The metallic copy, which has been duly stringed, has, we are informed, a better tone that its prototype; but, as Sir John Hawkins speaks very unfavourably of the latter, the praise is not excessive, and the claims of both instruments to admiration will rest on their unquestioned beauty rather than on any problematic musical usefulness. This electrotype is the work of the well known artist worker, Giovanni Franchi, to whose bitter loss, in the recent death of his only son, it may not be out of place here to allude. - The Architect.'

"THE WARICK VIOLIN AT SOUTH KENSINGTON." Birmingham Daily Post, 14 June 1870. British Library Newspapers.

REPRO.1869C-66