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Pochette

Alternate name(s)
  • Kit
  • Dancing master's fiddle
Date1660-1675 ca.
Place MadeParis, France, Europe
Serial No.none
SignednoneMarkingsnoneDescriptionThis 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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