Guitar
Date1720-1740 ca.
Place MadeSpain, Europe
Serial No.none
SignednoneMarkingsGlued to inside of back, upper bass bout: paper repair label with double-line border, handwritten in black ink: Conservation by / Brian Cohen. 2001. / England.
DescriptionThis guitar is one of only a few Iberian instruments that survive from before the mid-eighteenth century. Its back and sides are made from fruitwood and it has a flared head profile also seen on other Spanish instruments. It has its original delicatedly pierced parchment rose.
Top: two-piece spruce, medium grain, wood of top extends 52 mm over neck
Back: two-piece fruitwood, the top edges slightly let in at neck heel; decorative inlay applied prior to fitting of neck
Ribs: two-piece fruitwood, divided at bottom joint by a poplar band surrounded with alternating poplar and stained fruitwood strips
Head: fruitwood veneered with matching fruitwood on front and back faces; wide, tapered design, with festooned outline; pairs of turned bone pins along the outline; inlaid rectangular mirror, probably not original; hole of 7 mm diameter drilled in central position at top of head; saw marks visible on edges of head
Neck: fruitwood, tied gut frets
Fingerboard: fruitwood edged in bone, with rectangular bone decorative inlay surrounded by alternating strips of stained fruitwood and bone; flush with soundboard
Nut: bone, a non-matching replacement with five courses: single, double, triple, double, double
Bridge: rosewood, bone inlay set in black mastic, moustaches terminating in rosewood hearts with raised bone triangles
Pegs: eight original, decoratively-turned fruitwood pegs with bone pins; two replacement pegs, two original pegs with replacement pins
End button: bone
Rose: triple layers of parchment; central foliate design based on two interlocking triangles, with teardrop-shaped openings and pierced vine motif, surrounded by a border of pierced rings with twelve spokes emanating from the corners of the central triangles
Top decoration: bone edging; dogtooth-pattern border of inlaid rosewood and bone triangles, surrounded by bone and stained fruitwood strips; dogtooth-pattern rosette of inlaid bone triangles separated by short strips of ebony, surrounded on each side by multiple strips of bone and stained fruitwood; abstract vine-pattern ebony inlay below the bridge and where the top extends over the neck
Back decoration: poplar edging; border of alternating poplar and stained fruitwood strips; center joint divided by poplar strips and a central stained fruitwood strip, visible from inside, now mostly filled in with black mastic where shrinkage has occured
DimensionsTotal guitar length: 955 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 684 mm
Back length: 477 mm
Upper bout width: 222 mm
Waist width: 180 mm
Lower bout width: 266 mm
Rib height (including edging), heel: 105 mm
Rib height, waist: 108 mm
Rib height, end block: 117 mm
Head length: 191 mm
Head width, top: 107 mm
Head width, bottom: 51 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 302 mm
Neck width, nut: 49 mm
Neck width, heel: 58 mm
Soundhole diameter: 86 mm
ProvenancePurchased in 2002 from Tony Bingham, London, England.
Published ReferencesAndré Larson, "Celebrating 30 Great Years . . . Sioux Falls Exhibition Crowns Another Notable Year," National Music Museum Newsletter 30, No. 4 (November 2003), pp. 1-3.
Credit LinePurchase funds gift of Margaret Ann Everist, 2002
Object number10076
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