Images from The Pressler
Gallery
Guitar by Alexander Voboam, Paris, 1670
Note: Click on any image on this page to see an enlargement.
NMM 4143. Guitar by Alexander Voboam (d. ca. 1679), Paris, 1670. Five double courses. Ten gut frets, 2 inlaid wooden frets.
Edged with ebony and ivory in a diagonal pattern. Ribs of ebony with ivory stringing. Back of French juniper with four strips of ebony/ivory/ebony stringing.
Two ivory buttons on the back and bottom to secure ribbon/strap. Back of neck and pegbox of veneered ebony, with ivory stringing. Ebony "moustache" on both sides of bridge. Spruce belly.
Rawlins Fund, 1987.
Maker's Mark on Peghead
Front, Back, and Side Views of Body
Front, Sides, and Back of Peghead
Ebony pegs with ivory balls and edging reproduced by restorer Daniel Sinier de Ridder, France, 1986.
Front, Back, and Side Views of Neck
Rose and Bridge
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Reproduction three-dimensional, tiered, "wedding cake" rose by Daniel Sinier de Ridder (1986), surrounded by inlaid ebony and ivory mirroring diagonal pattern of edging.
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Ebony moustaches on both sides of replaced bridge.
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Measurements
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Length: 907 mm
Body length: 454 mm
Upper bout: 208.5 mm
Center bout (waist): 188 mm
Lower bout: 2652 mm
Body depth: 80-90 mm (smaller at top, larger at bottom)
Vibrating string length: 657 mm |
Literature: "A 17th-Century Guitar from Louis XIV's Paris," Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter 15, No. 3 (April 1988), p. 2.
"1987 Acquisitions at USD Music Museum," Newsletter of the American Musical
Instrument Society 17, No. 2 (June 1988), p. 2.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 51.
Florence Gétreau, "Recent Research about the Voboam Family and Their Guitars," Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, 31 (2005), pp. 28, 34-39.
Steve Beckermann, Rusty Freeman, Michael Keller, and Michael J. Olsen, Art of the Guitar: A Luthier's Renaissance, Catalog of Exhibition at the Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota, February 26-June 7, 2009 (Fargo: Plains Art Museum, 2009), pp. 6 and 15.
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of Plucked Stringed Instruments Made Before 1800
National Music Museum
The University of South Dakota
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069
