Lute; yueqin

Yueqin, lute. The circular body has a flat back and table, and is of a dark brown wood. There are two raised wooden frets on the short neck, and eight frets on the table. The peg-box has four side-entrant tapered pegs for two double courses of strings. The peg-box terminates in a forward-facing finial which has an integral carving of a bat. The four strings pass over the sound-table and are fixed to a semicircular wooden bridge glued to the table. Below the bottom fret on the sound-table is a square patch of unfinished wood, where there was once a label.