Mandolone
Alternate name(s)
- Mandolin
Date1775 ca.
Place MadeNaples, Campania, Italy, Europe
Serial No.none
DescriptionThis large bass mandolin is of the Neapolitan tradition, with a heavily figured maple bowl. Stringing: eight double courses and one single bass course
Soundboard: two-piece quarter-cut spruce: medium, wavy grain broadening to wide at the edges
Bowl: 41 maple staves with prominent medium curl, the inner 39 staves narrower and fluted
Clasp: two-piece maple with prominent medium curl, divided by five-ply strips of maple and light hardwood; remains of broken bone strap button in end
Head: festooned black-stained poplar, the top veneered with five later alternating strips of ebony and boxwood; the back veneered with dark brown hardwood with alternating strips of bone and ebony at center; decoratively turned bone pins around edges of head
Neck: veneered with alternating strips of bone and ebony
Binding: bone with wide bone and ebony purfling trim
Fingerboard: five alternating strips of boxwood and ebony; 14 brass bar frets; later
Nut: bone; later
Bridge: black-stained walnut with bone saddle; later
String holders: 9 bone pins, 8 with missing eyes, in clasp
Tuners: 17 dark red-brown hardwood friction pegs with integralpins
Pickguard: ebony parallelogram bound in five-ply bone and ebony strips
Rose: three tier pierced leather with black-painted decoration highlighting pierced design
Rosette: mother-of-pearl circles and tassles engraved and filled with black ink, set into black mastic and surrounded on each side by five-ply bone and ebony strips
Lacquer: clear
Decoration: bone heart and ogee inlay engraved and filled with black ink decoration inlaid on lower end of top, surrounded with black mastic
Bowl lining: white cloth; later
DimensionsTotal mandolone length: 950 mm
Top length: 489 mm
Maximum body width: 336 mm
Maximum bowl height: 137 mm
Head length: 209 mm
Head width, top: 96 mm
Head width, bottom: 87 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 248 mm
Neck width, nut: 66 mm
Neck width, heel: 81 mm
Soundhole diameter: 86 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 595 mm
ProvenanceFrom the Bisiach Collection, Venegono Superiore, acquired by Laurence Witten from the heirs, 1968.
Purchased by the National Music Museum from Laurence Witten Family, New Haven, Connecticut, 1984.
Credit LineWitten-Rawlins Collection, 1984
Object number03436
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