Scan 151
Musical instruments, historic, rare and unique;, 1921
9 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1PLATE XXVIII.
3CETERA,
4BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS.
6A n interesting Italian Cither, dated 1700, that may be compared for design, beauty, and workmanship with Lord Tollemache's English cither known as Queen Elizabeth's Lute. It belongs to the violinist Alard, and found a place in the splendid contribution of violins and other stringed instruments sent from Paris, by the mediation of Mr. E. Gand, to the Music Loan Collection in the Royal Albert Hall, 1885. It had also been lent by Mr. Vuillaume to the South Kensington Collection of 1872. This instrument, as well as the guitar drawn in the next Plate, show Stradivarius was not averse from making other instruments than violins. As well as cithers and guitars, he is known to have made a harp. Two views are given of this cetera, and one enlarged profile of the head and peg-box. It is a woman's head, said to represent Diana,—a satyr and nymph behind the peg-box serving to form a crook or handle for supporting the instrument, as the lizard in Mr. Donaldson's cetera already described.
8It will be seen this Cetera differs from the Quinterna in Plate XXIII.; it is in form one of the oldest existing musical instruments.
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