Guitar
Maker
Alexandre Voboam
Date1670
Place MadeParis, France, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedIncised and filled with black ink on ivory plaque inlaid in head: A Voboam / 1670DescriptionThe Voboam family were prominent French guitar makers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Similar instruments appear in paintings of the period, such as by Watteau. The guitar was continually popular in France from the Renaissance through the 20th century.
Stringing: five double courses
Top: two-piece spruce: fine grain grain broadening to medium at edges, wood of top extends 38 mm over neck
Back: five-piece juniper divided by three-ply ebony-ivory-ebony strips; decoratively turned bone strap buttons near neck heel and lower end (later)
Ribs: three-piece ebony, the center strip wider, with ivory strips between, divided at bottom joint with ebony graft with ivory strip trim
Head: softwood, possibly juniper, veneered with ebony, with ivory strip inlays on back and ebony and ivory chevron trip on face, and ivory signature plate, with festooned outline; hole drilled at top of head
Neck: veneered with ebony and ivory strips
Frets: 10 tied gut frets; two ebony frets inlaid into top
Fingerboard: ebony with ebony and ivory chevron binding with ivory and ebony purfling trim; flush with soundboard
Nut: bone
Bridge: ebony tie bridge; upper portion with alternating strips of ivory and ebony, moustaches terminating in ebony vine shapes; later, by Sinnier and Ridder
Pegs: 10 ebony with bone pins and bone collar ring; later
End button: decoratively turned bone
Rose: six-tier parchment rose; by Sinnier and Ridder
Rosette: ebony and ivory chevron surrounded by five-ply ebony and ivory strip trim
Binding: ebony and ivory chevron surrounded by five-ply ebony and ivory strip trim on top
DimensionsTotal guitar length: 905 mm
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 654 mm
Back length: 445 mm
Upper bout width: 204 mm
Waist width: 180 mm
Lower bout width: 246 mm
Rib height (including edging), heel: 80 mm
Rib height, waist: 85 mm
Rib height, end block: 94 mm
Head length: 156 mm
Head width, top: 51 mm
Head width, bottom: 51 mm
Neck length (nut to ribs): 302 mm
Neck width, nut: 49 mm
Neck width, heel: 56 mm
Soundhole diameter: 91 mm
ProvenancePurchased in 1987 from Tony Bingham, London, England.
Published References“A 17th-Century Guitar from Louis XIV's Paris,” Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 15, No. 3 (April 1988), p. 2.
"1987 Acquisitions at USD Music Museum," Newsletter of the American Musical
Instrument Society 17, No. 2 (June 1988), p. 2.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 51.
Florence Gétreau, “Recent Research about the Voboam Family and Their Guitars,” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society Vol. 31 (2005), pp. 28, 34-39.
Art of the Guitar: a Luthier's Renaissance (Fargo, North Dakota: Plains Art Museum, 2009), pp. 6, 15.
Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1987
Object number04143
On View
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