50731-199-210
3/4/07
14:59
Page 206
RCM 381 Vielle à Roue Pajot, Jenzat, second half of the 19th century Inscriptions Brand on side of keybox: ANCIENNE MAISON / PAJOT / A JENZA{T} Brief Description Hurdy-gurdy in lute form (vielle en luth) with four sympathetic strings Dimensions : 732, without handle and crank 676 : 537 : 336 : 166 : 177 : chanterelles 354, bourdons c.420, trompette and mouche 424 Description Six strings. Front one-piece, of slab-cut maple with twopart C-shaped soundholes at tail. Complex edge decoration, consisting of chequered band edging of bone and ebony, alternate discs and tablets of engraved and coloured mother-of-pearl set in ebony, a line of elaborate purfling, red painted bands of wave-form, and a painted band of opposed black and red semicircles within black lines (similar bands on keybox and pegbox). Two ?later transfers of fashionably dressed female figures, one each side of keybox on front and another of a ?child at tail. Iron crank with porcelain handle. Tailpiece with trompette adjustment peg of ?lime veneered with mother-of-pearl
and ebony marquetry, and outlined with elaborate purfling; fastened by two treenails. Back of nine ribs, maple and rosewood alternating, with purfling between; maple ribs have red geometric patterning at edges, central maple rib has a band of floral ornament; capping-strip of maple and rosewood marquetry, with simple pattern of birds and foliage. Finial a female head wearing narrow band or coronet; cheeks and eyebrows painted. Thirteen natural keys and ten accidentals, g 1 to g3; naturals have sliders and touch-plates of ebony, one-piece; accidentals have bone sliders with bone touch-plates on round tenons. Keybox cover and wheel-cover are crude later replacements. Sympathetic strings have small wrestpin block at top of first rib on RH side; four wrestpins, two slotted, two drilled; hitchpin holes for sympathetic strings in the capping-strip are plugged and no bridge survives. Turned bobbin in front to disengage trompette. Commentary The chanterelles have individual nuts separated by a partition. There is a small turned button on inside edge of keybox at bridge end, to hitch one chanterelle away from the wheel. Jean Pajot (died 1847) began making hurdy-gurdies in Jenzat c.1795 and was succeeded by his son Gilbert (died 1853), who established the firm, and grandson JeanBaptiste I (died 1863), ‘the Stradivari of the vielle’; further generations carried on the firm up to 1939. Provenance Gift of the Royal Academy of Music, 1981 References None located
Vielle à roue, Pajot, RCM 381
206