Bass viol assembled from disparate parts of other instruments, dating from about 1680, including an inlaid tortoiseshell and ivory fingerboard in the style of Joachim Tielke (1641 - 1719) of Hamburg.

"Belly of two pieces of pine, single purfled [bordered] and with the soundholes placed rather high. Back of two pieces of sycamore. The body is simply lined with kerfing and with thin corner blocks. The neck, rounded at the root, has been lengthened by [a] packing piece. The pegbox is grafted to the neck and has a finely carved head of a grotesque old woman. Modern tailpiece with a carved ivory plaque (possibly part of a tobacco rasp) attached to an end pin. Fingerboard with tortoiseshell and ivory marquetry and floral scrolls of the Tielke type. Six pegs." - Anthony Baines:Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments. (London, 1998), p. 7.

This instrument was part of the collections of Carl Engel, and was valued at £10 when acquired by the South Kensington Museum in 1882.

This bass viol has been made up of a number of disparate parts, most likely English (according to Anthony Baines), but the fingerboard may originally have come from an instrument made by Joachim Tielke of Hamburg (1641–1719). It is not known when or where Carl Engel (1812–1882) acquired this instrument.

This bass viol is made up from pieces of different instruments. They include a finely carved old woman's head used as a finial, a fingerboard probably made originally for a bass viol by Joachim Tielke (1641–1719) of Hamburg, and a tailpiece possibly made up from an ivory tobacco rasp. It is uncertain whether, in its current form, this was used seriously as a playing instrument or was just treated as an ornament to hang on a wall.

167&A-1882