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RCM 173 Guitar Josef Pagés, Cadiz, 1809 Inscriptions Printed label: JOSEF PAGES, / Me hizo en Cadiz / ano de 1809. / Calle de la Armargura Brief description Early 19th-century Spanish guitar, now with six single strings Dimensions : 951 : 458 : upper bouts 212½, middle bouts 171, lower bouts 282 : at neck joint 89, at tail 84 : 634 Description Front two-piece, of fine grain with plain dark wood edging; soundhole collar of mother-of-pearl in mastic, encircled with purfling, and a separated outer line of double purfling. Soundhole diameter: 82mm; centre of soundhole from tail: 313mm. Two transverse bars, two vertical, one on each side of soundhole, and five fan bars. Later pin-bridge. Rosewood ribs and one piece back; dart of vertically-grained wood in joint of ribs at tail. Mahogany neck with pointed heel. Simple shield-shaped mahogany tuning-head (see Commentary), the front face veneered with rosewood, with tapered dart-joint to neck; later machine-tuners with tapered bone barrels and ivory heads decorated with holes and notches. Nut of ivory; rosewood fingerboard reaching to the edge of the soundhole; seventeen frets with the joint at the octave fret; width of fingerboard: at joint 59mm, at nut 48.2mm. Commentary This guitar would originally have had six double courses (the six course instrument remained popular in Spain until c.1830). Two openings were cut in the peghead when it was adapted as a tuning head for six single strings. The mounts for the machine-tuners do not fit the sides of the tuning head well; the tapered barrels of the present machines may have been formed from the original bone pegs. The very thin fingerboard appears to have been reworked. Josef (José) Pagés (1762–before 1830) was one of three Cadiz guitar makers who developed fan barring in the late 18th and early 19th century. Provenance Gift of Miss M E Marsham, October 1928 References Turnbull 1974, p.68, 144, pl.38 Grove 1980, ill. v.7 p.829 Grove 1984, v.2 p.90 & ill. p.91 Wells 1984, p.14 Grove 2001, ill. v.10 p.55
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