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English guittar

Alternate name(s)

Cittern
English guitar

Maker John N. Preston

Date1785-1800 ca.

Place MadeLondon, England, Europe

ModelTear-drop shape

Serial No.none

SignedBranded on back of head: PRESTON MAKER / LONDON Branded on keyboard: SMITHS / PATENT BOX / [British royal crest] DIEU ET MON DROIT / LONDON Stamped on upper edge of machine tuners: KEATMarkingsnoneDescriptionA virtually identical instrument is shown in a painting by Thomas Gainsborough (1788); “Portrait of Mrs. Philip Thicknesse,” now in the Cincinnati, Ohio Art Museum.

Stringing: five brass double courses
Soundboard: two-piece spruce, medium grain
Back: one-piece quarter-cut maple with medium curl descending from treble to bass
Ribs: two-piece quarter-cut maple with medium curl
Head and neck: maple; head above machine tuners separate piece head terminates in square veneered with tortoise shell
Binding and purfling: black-painted imitation purfling only
Fingerboard: spruce veneered with ebony; undercut, decoratively scalloped fingerboard end; 12 brass bar frets; three capotasto positions
Nut: bone
Bridge: black-stained maple
Tuner: single brass watch key mechanism
Saddle: bone; top wider than bottom
Endpins: 4 ivory; 6 later domed slot-head screws
Strap button: ivory on lower rib
Rose: domed bone, ebony, and maple; twelve-pointed star with the points separated by maple filigree; center part reinforced from back with paper
Rosette: two rings of black-painted imitation purfling, set in from soundhole edge
Varnish: yellow
Linings: spruce
Neck block: light wood
End block: light wood
Top braces: unknown
Back braces: four spruce back braces, tapered with triangular profile; set into spruce reinforcements running from top to back on sides
Smith's Patent Box: miniature piano hammer mechanism mounted over strings in front of bridge, with ivory key covers, oval maple and mahogany box with adjustable brass hardware, and spruce top
DimensionsTotal guittar length: 668 mm
Back length (including portion over neck heel): 350 mm
Back length (not including portion over neck heel): 334 mm
Maximum back width: 390 mm
Rib height (including edging) at heel: 54 mm
Rib height, at waist: 71 mm
Rib height, at end block: 71 mm
Head and pegbox length: 167 mm
Head width, top: 31 mm
Pegbox width, bottom: 46 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 178 mm
Neck width, nut: 46 mm
Neck width, heel: 52 mm
Soundhole diameter: 79 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge): 427 mm
ProvenanceArne B. Larson Collection, Vermillion, South Dakota, 1979.
Published ReferencesAndré P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 11.

Panagiotis Poulopoulos, The Guittar in the British Isles 1750-1810, Ph.D. Dissertation (Edinburgh, The University of Edinbught, 2011) p. 608.

Credit LineArne B. Larson Collection, 1979

Object number01292

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