File:Cittern (AM 1998.60.105-5).jpg

English: Cittern, pear shaped body, flat back, ten strings, semi circular scroll, Preston tuning device, three neck holes, yellow cord 1 cittern maker unknown, England, late 18th century - early 19th century spruce, birds-eye maple, ebony, brass, ivory, copper, ivory, metal, varnish, 665 x 289 x 78 mm 1998.60.105 Castle 170 During the renaissance, the cittern was regarded as a tough and slightly inferior relation to the lute. It was more strongly constructed and had a fretted neck. It was made with a flat back and sides which tapered towards the bottom of the instrument, making the body shallower at the lower end. Wire strings, of varying numbers, were plucked with the fingers or a plectrum. By the late 18th century, its tapering ribs had been abandoned in favour of parallel ones. Its body became rounded. In this form it became known as the ‘English guitar’. It enjoyed considerable popularity among fashionable young ladies, but by the early 19th century the cittern had been ousted by the guitar. This cittern has a set of ten wire strings in four upper pairs in unison and two bass strings. It has been fitted with a ‘Preston Tuning Device’ which is operated by a watch key for fine-tuning. Arnold Dolmetsch is recorded to have played an instrument of this type ‘with a quill or with fingers according to the desired effect’.