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Pochette

Alternate name(s)
  • Kit
  • Dancing master's fiddle
Date1660-1675 ca.
Place MadeParis, France, Europe
Serial No.none
Signednone
Markingsnone
DescriptionThis pochette, or dancing master's fiddle, is of the same sort of workmanship as another example in the NMM's collection bearing a label of Joachim Tielke, 1671. This instrument is significantly smaller and has the carved head of a woman atop the pegbox.

Top: one-piece light hardwood top, possibly boxwood
Back, sides, neck, and head: one-piece ebony; five facets on back with flat-hammered double twisted silver wire inlay around edges; head terminates female head with double twisted silver wire inlay
Purfling: flat-hammered double twisted silver wire around edges
Varnish: none
Decoration: flat-hammered double twisted silver wire inlaid throughout body and fittings; carved Moorish head
Fingerboard: ebony inlaid around edges with flat-hammered double twisted silver wire; wedge-shaped; notch at neck position; relatively flat profile
Nut: ebony
Tailpiece: ebony; tailgut passes through holes drilled in face
Tailgut: silver wire; hammered ends to hold on tailpiece
Pegs: four ebony
Saddle: ebony; set into top
Endpin: ebony; integral with body
Soundholes: elongated c-shape with notches on outside edge; small heart cut in top just below end of fingerboard
DimensionsTotal length: 363 mm
Total length without endpin: 357 mm
Top length: 219 mm
Top width: 25-32 mm
Rib height: 9-20 mm
Stop length: 127 mm
Vibrating string length: 210 mm
Neck length (bottom of nut to ribs): 79 mm
ProvenancePreviously owned by William E. Hill & Sons, London, England. Purchased in 1988 from Bernhard von Hünerbein, Cologne, Germany.
Published ReferencesMade for Music:  An Exhibition to Mark the 40th Anniversary of the Galpin Society
for the Study of Musical Instruments (Amersham: Halstan & Co., 1986), p. 43, plate
11.

Friedemann Hellwig, "Hamburg and Paris: Joachim Tielke's Pochettes," Galpin Society Journal 62 (2009), pp. 183-190.
Credit LineBoard of Trustees, 1988
Object number04543
On View
Not on view
Pochette
Joachim Tielke
1671
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