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Harvard University
Department of Music
North Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-2791
musicdpt@fas.harvard.edu

String Instruments

String Instruments in the Harvard Collection represent both Western and non-Western traditions. Strongly represented are examples from German, French and American schools of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.


Pardessus de viole by Louis Guersan, French, 1761.

Back and sides of alternating strips of maple and cherry wood. Fingerboard of ebony veneer over maple.
Printed label: Ludovicus Guersan/ prope Comaediam Gallicam/ Lutetiae Anno 1761. Gift of Mary Otis Isham, in memory of Ralph Isham (AB 1889).
Louis Guersan was one of the most famous makers of these small five-string viols. This instrument is of particular value because it has survived in nearly original condition. It retains its original neck, fingerboard, tailpiece, nut, and four of its original pegs. Even the varnish remains intact and essentially as the maker left it more than two hundred years ago.

 

 
 

 

 


 

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String • Wind • Keyboard • Non-Western • Isham • Hewitt