Cistre
Alternate name(s)
- Guitare anglais
- English guittar
- Cittern
Date1760-1780 ca.
Place MadeFrance, Europe
ModelPear shape
Serial No.none
SignedPrinted on paper label, the last two numbers written in black ink: 17 Made by 27 / William PriorMarkingsnone
DescriptionEarlier English paper label was inserted in this later French instrument, possibly originally.
Stringing: 11 strings, 3 single bass courses and 4 double treble courses
Soundboard: spruce, wide grain
Back: one-piece quarter-cut maple with narrow curl descending from treble to treble; pins through back into neck and bottom blocks
Ribs: one-piece quarter-cut maple with faint, narrow curl
Head and neck: maple; head above machine tuners separate piece head terminates in a scroll
Binding and purfling: angled strips of mother-of-pearl and ebony on top with single dark hardwood strip set in from edge; edge of back painted black
Fingerboard: veneered with tortoise shell over red paint with ebony and pearl decoration at upper and lower ends; rounded fingerboard end; 14 brass bar frets; five capotasto positions
Nut: bone
Bridge: black-stained maple
Tuner: single brass watch key mechanism
Saddle: ebony; not flush with top
Endpins: 11 ivory
Strap button: boxwood on lower rib
Rose: missing
Rosette: mother-of-pearl trianges and strips and ebony strips surrounded on each side by purfling strips, set in from edge of soundhole
ProvenancePurchased by National Music Museum in 1976 from Sotheby's Auction House, London, England, November 25, 1976, Lot 70. Previously owned by L. G. Balmforth, Leeds, England.
Published ReferencesL. G. Balmforth, An Exhibition of Master Violins and Antique Stringed Instruments; Leeds Centenary Musical Festival 11-18 October 1958 (Leeds: L .G. Balmforth and Messers. Petty & Sons Ltd., 1958), pp. 6, 11.
Panagiotis Poulopoulos, The Guittar in the British Isles 1750-1810, Ph.D. Dissertation (Edinburgh, The University of Edinbught, 2011) p. 615.
Credit LineRingley Fund, 1976
Object number01515
On View
Not on view
1760-1780 ca.