Neapolitan mandolin

Early 20th-century Neapolitan mandolin. Four-piece front of wide to medium grain, wide at edges. Elliptical soundhole. Edged with chequered band of mother-of-pearl and ebony, an inner line of mother-of-pearl in mastic, in rope pattern, and double purfling. Tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl marquetry plectrum-guard. Loose bridge with long dart finials and bone insert. Strings hitched to plated metal ‘saddle’ at tail with raised lugs to form ‘hitchpins’. Back of 21 ribs of rosewood with pale wood lines between. Capping strip edged with ?satinwood. Neck of, or veneered in, rosewood. Rosewood fingerboard with seventeen metal frets. Machine-tuners of the same plated metal as hitchplate with bone heads.