1796 Giovanni Battista Fabricatore

Naples, Italy

The ornate guitar by Giovanni Battista Fabricatore of Naples (c. 1750–1812) is an example of one of Fabricatore’s more expensive models. It closely resembles the 1795 Fabricatore guitar displayed in the Museo degli Strumenti Musicali in Milan.

Specifications
Date 1796
Location Naples, Italy
Length of Guitar 905 mm
String Length 643 mm
Upper Bout Width 215 mm
Waist Width 164 mm
Lower Bout Width 273 mm
Side Depth at Waist 75 mm
Soundboard: Spruce | Back: Maple | Sides: Maple | Details: Neck and heel inlaid with parallel bone strips

Performance Video

The soundboard is made of spruce and the back and sides of maple. The decorative weaving vines bordering the soundboard, continuing up the neck and encircling the headstock are made with close to a thousand pieces of  hand-cut mother-of-pearl. The neck and headstock are veneered with tortoiseshell. Similar to the 1785 and 1795 G. B. Fabricatores in this collection, the body is quite shallow, and the neck and heel are inlaid with parallel bone strips running up to the head.

Absent on the 1796 guitar are the ebony bridge mustaches found on the other two G. B. Fabricatores in this collection; perhaps mustaches would have interfered with the aesthetic created by the elaborate mother-of=pearl inlays.