Dear Monica & list Sorry for taking so long in replying to messages about these paintings, my life is a bit too hectic right now. I wonder if William Bartlett was able to access the pictures (could you William? Otherwise I could mail them to you); whenever I click on flickr it takes me directly to my page, so I'm of no help, but apparently, following Stewart's directions it is possible to find them. Thanks Stewart!
The citara is still the one and only hispanic baroque portrait of a cittern that have come to my notice, I love the detail of the semi frets... I think the only instruments with this kind of frets are citterns, I know of no bandurria or other thing with semi frets, but who knows, do you Monica?... But Alexander is right: it's hard to say if the fixed bridge can hold metal strings All instruments from Cocucho and Nurio are from the 2nd half of the 18th century. I don't know dates for the organ of Tlacochahuaya, but I'm fairly sure it's also 18th. The instrument from Cocucho that I label vihuela has, in my opinion, a set of very "vihuela-like" ornaments, and pegs for 6 strings, could this suggest that The vihuela, the real one, was still alive in 18th cent Mexico? The 6 pegs could stand for 6 courses (as is not uncommon in many paintings). I think it would be too early an instrument to call it a 6-course guitar, as the earliest known source for this instrument is, I think, Vargas y Guzmán's Explicación para tocar la guitarra de punteado..., (Veracruz, 1776, first known copy Cádiz, 1773), and as Vargas says himself, it was a new and also a better instrument than the 5-course one. Otherwise, the instrument in Cocucho has only 4 frets, as recommended for rasgueado. Apparently these 18th cent. guys didn't know (as we do today) that you have to make a choice between vihuela-guitarra. I just uploaded another painting by French artist Edouard Pingret, who was in Mexico in the 1850s. The instrument the woman is playing looks very much like a baroque guitar with 6 pegs. Also, there's a music historian here in Mexico who was furious with me and my ensemble La Fontegara because we made a CD of sonatas from New Spain, and we play a gamba. She very strongly states that viols were not played in Mexico, so, I think I have to change, and the instrument I called a viola, now must be called a 6-string cello.... Best wishes eloy ----- Original Message ----- From: Monica Hall To: Vihuelalist Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 9:11 AM Subject: Fw: Eloy's photos ----- Original Message ----- From: Monica Hall To: Vihuelalist Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 6:15 PM Subject: Eloy's photos I have at last been able to access Eloy's photos. They are brilliant especially the citara. What is the date of them? Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
