Yangqin

Yangqin, dulcimer. A trapezoid box zither, with the long sides of scalloped outline. There is a small drawer in the middle of the box. The box and fitted lid are of black lacquered wood, copiously decorated in gold lacquer with designs of flowers, foliage and insects, and a depiction on the lid of figures in a garden. The wooden soundtable has a pair of roses with elaborately carved centres of ivory and surrounds of red-brown wood. The instrument is pegged for 14 triple courses of wire strings, seven on the right hand side and seven on the left. The strings run over a pair of triangular outer bridges of dark brown wood surmounted by a metal rods, beside the tuning pegs. The inner bridges on the soundtable are of wood capped with ivory. One label on the table bears the name of the institute from which the instrument originated, and two labels on either side of the the seven bridges for the treble strings bear the note names. There are two brass tuning keys in the form of hammers, which may also have had the function of adjusting the bridges. One hammer (Horniman Museum number: M15.10.48/322d) is inscribed on one side: 'made in Jin Sheng Guan at the capital city of the Province' and on the other: 'without any sub-school or other branch'. The yangqin is played with two bamboo beaters.