English guittar
Alternate name(s)
- English guitar
- Cittern
Maker
William Gibson
Date1782
Place MadeDublin, Ireland, Europe
ModelBell J-top shape
Serial No.none
SignedWritten in ink at the top of the back, the year underlined: Will Gibson Dublin / 1782Markingsnone
DescriptionWilliam Gibson of Dublin was a music teacher, as well as an English guittar and harpsichord maker. His instruments feature some of the first metal worm-gear tuning mechanisms used on plucked stringed instruments.
Stringing: 10 strings, with four single bass courses and three upper double courses
Soundboard: two-piece spruce, fine grain
Back: one-piece slab cut burled maple
Ribs: four-piece quarter-cut maple with narrow, irregular curl
Head and neck: beech; head terminates in square veneered with tortoiseshell and bound with ivory; neck thinner on side for thumb; front of head concave
Binding and purfling: single black-painted line
Fingerboard: brown-stained beech veneered in center with ivory; undercut, decoratively scalloped fingerboard end; 15 brass bar frets, the last onle under top two courses; four capotasto positions
Nut: ivory
Bridge: rosewood
Pegs: two pairs of brass worm-gear tuners with ring-shaped brass heads with pins; bound in ivory and inset into head
Saddle: ivory
Endpins: nine ivory; two missing; there is one fewer pin than strings and presumably one pin had two string loops affixed to it
Rose: embossed brass with cherub surrounded by garland, ribbon, and recorders, violins, guitars, horns, and lutes
Rosette: three rings of black-painted imitation purfling, set in from soundhole edge; bound in raised ring of dark-varnished maple
Varnish: dark red brown
Linings: spruce, very narrow; twenty spruce triangular blocks on inside of ribs, perpendicular to plane of top and back, into which top and back braces are set
Neck block: integral neck and top block with thick spruce wedges on each side
End block: spruce; ends roughly tapered
Corner blocks: spruce
Top braces: five spruce ladder braces, tapered with triangular upper profile, one above soundhole, set into blocks glued to ribs; short lengths of spruce strips for reinforcement around edge of soundhole
Back braces: five spruce back braces, tapered with triangular upper profile; lowest five braces set into blocks glued to ribs, upper brace set into corner blocks
Other: narrow scraper marks on inside of back and ribs
DimensionsTotal guittar length: 810 mm
Back length (not including portion over neck heel): 361 mm
Back length (including portion over neck heel): 372 mm
Upper bout width: 62 mm
Waist width (at corners): 182 mm
Lower bout width: 312 mm
Rib height (including edging) at heel: 62 mm
Rib height, at waist: 73 mm
Rib height, at end block: 78 mm
Head and pegbox length: 212 mm
Head width, top: 36 mm
Pegbox width, bottom: 44 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 224 mm
Neck width, nut: 49 mm
Neck width, heel: 55 mm
Soundhole diameter: 77 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge): 462 mm
ProvenanceArne Larson obtained this English guittar from Ernest F. Lant, Sevenoaks, England, 1952. Arne B. Larson Collection, Vermillion, South Dakota, 1979.
Published ReferencesPanagiotis Poulopoulos, The Guittar in the British Isles 1750-1810, Ph.D. Dissertation (Edinburgh, The University of Edinbught, 2011) p. 286, 580.
Credit LineArne B. Larson Collection, 1979
Object number02627
On View
Not on view
1760-1780 ca.
