> Sorry, I'm not a luthier. Still, I'd wager the eBay piece is an oddly > shaped, early 20th-c. German wandervogel guitar-lute. The decor and tuning > machines coincide perfectly with such things. > > While uncommon, English guitars with a multi-ribbed, bowl-shaped back did > occur. The Met in NYC has a phenomenal one of ca. 1750s vintage. > > Best, > Eugene >
I agree. The instrument is surely a German lute-guitar from the late 19th or early 20th C. I was in New York for a couple of days recently (and had the honour and privilege of meeting a certain esteemed gentleman, currently running a Baroque lute contest, who bought me lunch, conversed eloquently, and showed me some record shops to boot). I went to the Met and saw this instrument � I think we�re talking about the same one. I tried to take a picture but, without flash (which is forbidden), it was impossible. I made notes � and have mislaid them! I thought the instrument might be what J. Carpentier, writing in the 1770s, calls a �cythre en luth�. Cythres were normally wire-strung, with the top four doubled but Carpentier also mentions gut-strung, lute-shaped ones too. These French instruments were normally tuned in A and so have a longer string length than typical English guitars ----------------------------------------- Email provided by http://www.ntlhome.com/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
