Dear Martyn, It may look very incorrect however we have to keep in mind that a painting is not a photograph. A painter has other goals to achieve. We can examine some interesting details of paintings, but coming into direct conclusions is another matter. First of all, Antoine Pesne who was the director of the Berlin Academy of the Arts from 1722 (where he was called by King Frederick I of Prussia) wouldn't get things totally wrong IMO. Have a look at his other paintings - it's really difficult to find one thing that is incorrectly depicted. On the other hand one has to take into consideration that the texture he used, especially to paint a background, or items that were classified by him as less important, was not perfectly lucid, sharp or hyper realistic. He was called later one of the fathers of Rococo in painting and the new style had different means of showing reality. He was a fine portraitist and had very good powers of observation though. I doubt very much if he used a ruler to paint the strings we are talking about (and he probably didn't care, not knowing that there would be some maniacs like us a couple of centuries later who would dispute about these archaic instruments). However what is of some interest to me i! s the fact that he noticed free grooves on the nut, missing chantarelles, red strings on the bass side from the 3rd course on, and a longish neck. How the first string is attached to the bridge is difficult to say as I can't see anything apart from a whitish line over the bridge which could mean a normal way of tying a string. As I said before, we shouldn't expect the same level of clarity in details as in some Renaissance or early Baroque pictures. If you are concerned about asymmetry in placing the bridge I would say that we can not see where exactly it ends on the bass side as it's covered by Lady's forearm. If you judge it by the position of the last bass string it can be misleading as the Lady could have moved all courses towards treble side. Whether she played this instrument or not is not really important here.
Then, what kind of instrument is this? My guess is that it could have been an example of a German D-minor theorbo (the one that Weiss talked about) rebuild from a normal 13 course lute. Why? 1/ The time and place is correct - the portrait was painted in Berlin in 1745 (some more info on Eleonore http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleonore_von_Schlieben ). 2/ We can't see the whole instrument, but it's clear that diapasons are not attached in the 1st pegbox, so there must be another one somewhere up there. Conclusion - the instrument has a long neck and 2 pegboxes. Because of the time and place it is doubtful if it could be an archlute. Then a swan neck lute or theorbo is possible. 3/ The Lady took off trebles and the only reason for doing so could be a need of transforming the lute into continuo instrument. 4/ The octave stringing from the 3rd course down only confirm this supposition. 5/ The number of fingerboard frets can suggest that proportions of the body to neck could have been changed in favor of the neck. It is possible that the real proportions of this lute were not portrayed correctly intentionally because of the constraints caused by the composition of this painting. Lady's figure is centrally placed like an axis of the picture, so it is possible that Pesne wanted to fit the 1st pegbox within view. This in turn may suggest that it could be more theorbo-like. All in all it is a very interesting stringing idea - to use one D-minor instrument alternatively for continuo or solo just by rearranging a stringing. Obviously I can be totally wrong, but it gives me an idea though. All the best Jaroslaw Wiadomość napisana przez Martyn Hodgson w dniu 20 lip 2012, o godz. 09:07: > > Dear Jaroslaw, > > It may be some sort of sport (in a modern biological sense), but I > suspect either the painter didn't quite get it right - see how the > first string is fastened not to the to the body of the bridge but to > the treble point! - or the neck is indeed incorrectly set (maybe in > converting from an instrument with fewer courses the neck was not > canted over to ensure the bridge remained central....... > > Do we know if she actually played the lute or is this just an example > of an elegant pose adopted simply for pictorial delight? > > Martyn > --- On Thu, 19/7/12, JarosAA'aw Lipski <[email protected]> wrote: > > From: JarosAA'aw Lipski <[email protected]> > Subject: [LUTE] Eleonore von Schlieben-Sanditten > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, 19 July, 2012, 20:45 > > here is a link if interested > [1]http://uploads7.wikipaintings.org/images/antoine-pesne/portrait-of-e > leonore-louise-albertine-comtesse-von-schlieben-sanditten-freifrau-von- > keyserlingk.jpg > JL > To get on or off this list see list information at > [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > -- > > References > > 1. > http://uploads7.wikipaintings.org/images/antoine-pesne/portrait-of-eleonore-louise-albertine-comtesse-von-schlieben-sanditten-freifrau-von-keyserlingk.jpg > 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >
