If you look at "l'homme au luth" (Rubens ? Troyes museum St Loup)
you can see some strings are red too, and not only basses... (but I have no asnwer about it, copper loading is understandable for bass strings but treble ?) http://lavie-enchampagne.com/pdf/numero75/numero75.pdf (perhaps you can find a better photo of the painting ?) ValA(c)ry > Message du 28/05/16 16:46 > De : "Sean Smith" <lutesm...@gmail.com> > A : "lute list" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> > Copie A : > Objet : [LUTE] Red string > > > Good morning all, > > I was impressed this painting: > http://www.fondationcustodia.fr/ununiversintime/1_meester_van_de_jar en_veertig_4494.cfm > > I appreciate that the artist was very attentive so I started zooming around with the magnifier. I noticed that while the spacing is unrealistic the top string was red. I hadn't heard about this from our modern string revivalists so I'm curious. What do you think it might be? > > Sean > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > --