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Guitar

Date: 1650 ca.
Place Made:Italy, Europe
DescriptionThis guitar is of an unknown maker, though likely in the Venetian tradtion. It has been converted to a six-string guitar in the nineteenth century and received a later back, but preserves its original, delicately constructed parchment rose.

Materials: Rosewood sides, neck veneered in ebony set into ivory; ivory plaques; mother-of-pearl inlay; back of plain maple fingerboard with engraved ivory plaques; 2-tiered rose surrounded by mother-of-pearl inlay.
ProvenanceLaurence Witten acquired the guitar from a music store in New York City, 1970.
Purchased by the National Music Museum from Laurence Witten family, New Haven, Connecticut, 1984.
Terms
Credit Line: Witten-Rawlins Collection, 1984
Not on view
Published ReferencesAndré P. Larson, “Early Italian Plucked Stringed Instruments at the Shrine to Music Museum,” Lute Society of America Newsletter, Vol. XX, No. 1 (February 185), p. 8.
Object number: 03438