Dear Stuart and All:
What makes me think of 17th-century citterns is the characteristic taper
of the body, rather thick at the neck and quite shallow at the heel. This
is one characteristic not seen on English guittars, which appear (to me)
uniformly deep in the body.
It would be interesting to track the dates of surviving instruments and
see just when the tapering body style became obsolete. Another interesting
feature worth tracking is the cutaway neck. As others have suggested, we
may see an overlap or zig-zag in cittern development, since evolution of
this type sometimes does not follow a straight line. Old and new may even
have coexisted for some time.
Cheers,
Jim
Stuart Walsh
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: James A Stimson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [email protected]
.com> cc:
Subject: Re: [CITTERN] Re: An
eighteenth century cittern in Prague (Polish guitars?)
10/09/2006 05:00
PM
Dear Stuart and All:
> Could this Zacher instrument have been an older, 17th-century cittern
that
> was converted by the addition of a new neck and bridge? Or does it appear
> to have been entirely constructed in the 18th century?
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
>
It looks like an eighteenth century cittern (zister) to me. It's
different from the later 1750s 4x2+2, English guitar-type instruments
and it's different from earlier ones -
it's chunkier, a rather different body outline, a deeper body. But it
does have the traditional neck covering half the fingerboard.
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