Mandolino

Mandolino with the back made from a gourd. Six double courses. Front one-piece, of wide grain; edged with a black inlaid line and bone strip which continues up edges of fingerboard. Inlaid disc ornament at tail. Inserted rose with foliate piercing based on a cross pattern; collar of mother-of-pearl inlays in black mastic. Lute-style tiebridge with slips of bone inlaid on edges. Back formed from a hollowed gourd, giving a wide and shallow cavity with concavity in the outline at tail; lined with pages from an unidentified printed poem in eight-line stanzas. Neck and pegbox ebonised, with nut of bone. Front edges of pegbox veneered with ivory and bone. Bone face to hook finial which had an inserted oval plaque, now missing. Twelve transverse pegs, the heads stained black.