Frank Nordberg wrote:
I got a reply from Britta Peterson at the Stockholm Stadmuseum. The
reason why she was unable to answer right away turned out to be that
the musueum don't actually own the cittern. They have it for a long
time from another museum (the Swedish Historical Museum) and was
returned to the owner recently. Fortunately, the Stockholm museum just
got it back for a temporary exhibition so she was able to examine it
for me anyway.
The measurements are
Length: 68 cm.
Scale: 37 cm.
She's unable to say whether the citterns has been modified.
This does not seem to fit the instrument in Krafft's painting of course.
However, I contacted Tor Kvarv, a friend of mine who's a painter and a
art history expert. He told me that althoguh a late 18th C. portrait
painter would have been expected to keep a high standard of realism,
this would only apply to the person in the picture. "Props," like the
cittern in Bellman's hands may well have been extensively modified to
fit the composition of the painting. Even rendering the instrument at
twice its real size would have been perfectly acceptable provided
there was an artistic reason to do so.
He couldn't, of course, say if there actually was an artistic reason
without seeing the picture and his computer had broken down so I
couldn't just email it to him.
We've agreed to meet for a cup of coffee and some looks at various
cittern pictures next time I'm in town. I suppose we'll just have to
let this part of the discussion rest until then.
Frank
I've been rummaging around and found this image of Bellman (the same
Krafft one but quite big and quite easy to see details) from an old LP:
http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/Bellman.jpg
You have surmised that the instrument might be a 'prop' or small
instrument made to look bigger for artistic effect. Of course these are
possibilities. The instrument in the picture is quite big with very deep
sides. Bellman looks like he is resting his right hand thumb on the
soundboard. The fingerboard looks slightly curved.It's not easy to be
sure - but the lower strings seem to be paired. On the face of it,
though, it looks like a man and an instrument he is familiar with.
On the same LP there was a picture of a reconstruction of...I can't
quite remember.. of just a cyster of the time.. but I think it was
supposed to be Bellman's instrument. I always thought it was strange
because the reconstruction looks nothing like the instrument in the
Krafft picture. Here is a very poor quality scan of a photo of it.
http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/cyster1.jpg
The LP was songs by Bellman sung by Martin Best accompanying himself on
guitar and 'cyster' and presumably he was playing this instrument.
On the subject of bell citterns I came across this image of one (again
it's very poor quality). All I remember is that it was form a book
written in Italian:
http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/bell.jpg
The neck-body area on this and other bell citterns is (as far as I can
see) very different form the neck-body area of the instrument in the
Krafft painting. This one has 12 pegs. I suppose it's impossible to see
(in this poor quality image) how the strings are disposed but I'd guess
at pairing throughout. The other thing is the contrivance over the
bottom of the soundboard, behind the bridge. It could be some later
addition in line with some fashion of that time. But here is a similar -
but different - contrivance on a Hamburger Cithrinchen:
http://futuremuseum.co.uk/images/cache/Img5008S1000.jpg
details here:
http://www.futuremuseum.co.uk/Collection.aspx/charles_van_raalte/Object/hamburger_cithrinchen/
(did Rob mentions this instrument sometime?)
Stuart
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