Vihuela or Guitar...or?

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Comment by Peter Forrester on November 15, 2013 at 8:18

I think you'll find a similar-shaped instrument in other paintings by Poussin, and other artists as well.  Don't overlook that Poussin is here painting an imaginary scene in his past as well as ours, so that some difference in the instruments as well as the dress helps.

From the same period. various viols have similar outines, and guitars and vihuelas similar string lengths, so that there is no reason why the instrument should not have been built, if perhaps for a theatrical production, and worked well.

Comment by Rob MacKillop on November 13, 2013 at 20:17

I thought about Alexander as well. 

Comment by Scot Tremblay on November 13, 2013 at 17:11

I'd say it's a fanciful depiction of a plucked string instrument. It's neither guitar nor vihuela...and yet both! Androgynous maybe?

Has a slight resemblance to Alexander Batovs 'Henestrosa model' vihuela.

Comment by Rob MacKillop on November 13, 2013 at 14:40

Poussin, Bacchanal: The Andrians, 1630. Paris: Louvre.