Mandolin

Nineteenth-century Brescian mandolin with four single strings of gut. Front of one piece of wide-grained wood. Soundhole with bevelled edge. No rose; soundhole crossed by ebonised bar with ornamental notches. The back is not of the usual coopered ribs but assembled from triangles and diapers of ebony, mother-of-pearl and a variety of other woods, plain and stained, on a black cloth backing, giving a smoothly rounded surface. One-piece neck and pegbox of ebony. Fingerboard has edging and nut of mother-of-pearl; nut is scalloped between string notches. Fingerboard and back of neck inlaid with engraved mother-of-pearl, and further ?glass inserts at neck joint; eighteen ?silver-alloy frets; neck joint at the eleventh fret.