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One-string fiddle

One-string fiddle

Alternate name:Jap fiddle
Date: 1910 ca.
Place Made:England, Europe
Serial No: none
Signednone
MarkingsThe table inscribed with Chinese or Japanese characters in black ink.
DescriptionA composite one-stringed fiddle, the ribs, neck and pegbox carved from a single piece of wood. The ribs of oval profile, with a short tube at the foot into which a violin end-pin has been fixed. The single wire string is looped around the tube. The flat back by another hand; the flat table with characters written in black ink in imitation of Chinese jiaguwen inscriptions dating from the Shang Dynasty (16th - 11th century B.C.), and carved with two crude S-shaped soundholes. A sound-post is positioned beneath the right foot of the bridge.

The fingerboard is nailed to the neck, and is surmounted by a small upper bridge. The peg-box is in the form of a quadrilateral frame with two lateral holes for a violoncello peg, and terminates in a hemispherical finial.
The instrument is varnished a dark brown colour.
DimensionsOver all length: 685 mm
Over all width: 133 mm
Sounding length of strings: 347 mm
Height of lower bridge: 10 mm
Height of upper bridge: 4 mm
ProvenanceArne B. Larson Collection, Vermillion, South Dakota, 1979.
Terms
Credit Line: Arne B. Larson Collection, 1979
Not on view
Object number: 05634