Western string instruments

by Anne-Émmanuelle Ceulemans

This collection comprises all string instruments used in western classical or art music with the exception of the keyboard instruments like pianos or harpsichords. We distinguish bowed string instruments such as the violin, the viola da gamba or the tromba marina, plucked instruments such as the guitar, lute, cittren, mandolins and harps, and struck string instruments like the tympanon or zither.

The collection in numbers :

bowed string instruments

• violins : c. 191
• violas : c. 44
• cellos : c. 67
• double basses : c. 11
• viols : c. 56
• viole d'amore : c. 14
• kits : c. 27
• trumpets marine : c. 11

plucked string instruments

• lutes, theorbos and archlutes : c. 31
• guitars and chitarre battenti : c. 83
• cittrens and archcittrens : c. 43
• mandolins and mandores: c. 36
• harps : c. 45
• psalteries : c. 5

struck string instruments

• dulcimer : 12

various

• bows : c. 200
• other : c. 21
• and in addition some incomplete instruments, fragments of instruments, spare parts such as bridges, pegs and strings, experimental instruments and reconstructed instruments