One-string fiddle
Alternate name(s)
- Jap fiddle
Date1910 ca.
Place MadeEngland, Europe
Serial No.none
SignednoneMarkingsThe 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.
Credit LineArne B. Larson Collection, 1979
Object number05634
On View
Not on view
1940 ca.
1880-1900 ca.
1900-1925 ca.