PROBABLY URBINO SCHOOL, MID-16TH CENTURY, THE SOUNDBOARD PROBABLY REPLACED IN THE EARLY 18TH CENTURY

The cittern was a popular wire-strung instrument with metal frets, strummer with a plectrum and the melody was usually played on the top string. It became fashionable throughout Italy and central Europe following the publication in 1574 of Il primo libro di tabolaturo di cithara by Paolo Virchi, the son of a cittern maker from Brescia. The distinctive grotesque mask relates to that on a cittern from the collection of Lord Astor of Hever, now in the National Music Museum in The University of South Dakota (André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir, Vermillion, 1988), inside front cover and pp. 46-47). This in turn relates to an early cittern in a private collection inscribed A. Rossi Urbino [1550 or 1530]. In view of the distinctive intarsia and relief carved decoration on this cittern, it is interesting that the Duke of Urbino’s Palace is perhaps most famous for the Renaissance studiolo rooms decorated between 1474-1476 with intarsia panels whose geometric images simulate three-dimensional perspectives and objects, including musical instruments.

EDWARD “TEDDY” CROFT-MURRAY CBE (1907 – 1980)

Edward Croft–Murray (EC-M), descended from the Croft baronets of Croft Castle, Herefordshire (now National Trust) and related to a cousin of Empress Josephine of France, was best known as the keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. He worked there from the 1930’s to his death, interrupted only by war service as a ‘Monument Man’ in Italy during the second world war. He published widely on early drawings including with Anthony Blunt and his ‘magnus opus’ which is unlikely to be ever super ceded was the two volume definitive history on ‘Decorative Painting in England 1537 to 1837’.

However alongside his passion for the visual arts lay a deep knowledge and interest in music, its history and the instruments used to play it.

While at school (where he was a contemporary of Sir Peter Pears) he studied the violin. Later, he played the viola in Arthur Hind’s string quartet, accompanied on his Clementi pianoforte that was sadly destroyed in the blitz. At Oxford he was a pioneer in the revival of English opera. He developed his irreverent and creative humour in writing spoof operas. Alongside his love of classical music was a delight in contemporary dance music which led to his collecting scores and later in life composing a jazz mass.

Before the war, EC-M spent a summer touring Germany. Here he met the great-great-grandson of the romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber and during the war he met in Florence the heirs of composer Vincent Novello and urged them to publish his diaries. After the war he founded ‘The New Mellstock Band’ a group of amateur and professional musicians who played Church Band and Georgian music.

Combining his humour, humility and creativity, he composed music for his local church in Petersham under the name of ‘an unknown pupil of J. C. Bach ‘. At his death he left on his desk unfinished a catalogue of the musical instruments owned by the National Trust and a major study of the music of London’s pleasure gardens.

From the late 1930s he had started to ardently collect early musical instruments in their original condition. This was possibly the finest collection in private hands of unaltered string instruments at his death. Evening entertainment at his home No 4 Maids of Honour Row, Richmond (previously owned by John James Heidegger, Handel’s impresario) often ended with EC-M busking a pseudo- Elizabethan dance on this late 16^th century cittern which he had himself restored.

We do not know when he acquired it but do know that it was in his collection by 1964 when it was exhibited in Warwick County Museum in ‘In sweet Musik is such Art’, no 39 in the catalogue.

A Tree-Ring Analysis (dendrochronology) report which accompanies the lot was performed by John Topham. These results show that the youngest growth rings on the bass side date to 1712 and on the treble side to 1713. The sound-board most significantly cross-match instruments by a number of 18th century Cremonese makers, including six violins by Stradivari, and one Guarneri. This result clashes with the design elements and construction techniques employed in this instrument. These are recognized as pre 18th century and not Cremonese. The suggestion has been made that the soundboard was probably replaced in the early 18th century.