Cittern, made ca. 1700, possibly in Italy or Germany.

"Stamped on the back, next to the neck, with three Moors' (or kings') head crowned with name Nicolas (The N back to front) on a shield surrounded by a double-headed eagle. The same stamp also appears below the head. Striped back of sycamore and ebony in eleven strips slightly radiating. Pine belly, double purfled, with a finely carved rose and with varnish applied with a blade. The sides taper towards the base, and a halved turn baluster is applied on each side by the neck. Five broass hitch-pins at the base of the body receive the strings. Offset neck ... surmounted by a rtosewood fingerboard with shaped end on which is painted a grotesque beast with an ape's face. The head is a pegbox with ten shaped pegs of ivory, pierced and serrated, and with a rosette-shaped finial. Wire strings in five doubtle courses of steel and overspun brass. Of the eighteen brass frets, Nos 11, 13, and 15 serve the first two courses only." (Baines, Anthony. Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Part II: Non-Keyboard Instruments. London, 1998, p. 45.)

This instrument was bought from a Mr Wilson (no address supplied) for £3 - 0 - 0 in 1867.

Anthony Baines describes the object as "Italian or German; late seventeenth or early eighteenth century ... An example of the traditional Italianate cittern which many German makers continued to build up to the middle of the eighteenth century".

The cittern was a popular instrument strummed with a plectrum. The melody was played on the upper strings and the accompaniment on the lower ones at the same time. Dismissed by Michael Praetorius (1571 - 1621), a German organist and composer, as an instrument used by cobblers and tailors, and its sound described by Samuel Pepys as 'barber's music', nevertheless Paolo Vurchi (1574) and Anthony Holborne (1597) composed sophisticated music for it. These instruments came in different sizes and this example is comparatively small, making it easier for the player to achieve long stretches with his left hand, as the music often demanded.

35-1867