1884.113.5

Collection type

Object

Description

Harp with gourd resonator with bow shaped hole in the bottom, 5 strings and 4 wooden strips running through animal skin membrane. Wooden bridge placed horizontally across membrane with 7 perforations [five for strings].

Geographical reference

Western Africa

Africa > Western Africa

Cape Palmas

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Henry Mangles Denham

Field collector HMS Avon

PRM source Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers founding collection

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1846

Date collected

1845 / 1846

Acquisition information

Donated: 1884

Materials and processes

Material Gourd Plant, Material Cattle Skin Animal, Material Cane Plant, Material Wood Plant, Material Animal Sinew, Process Perforated, Process Stretched, Process Tied, Process Knotted, Process Nailed, Process Twisted

Dimensions

Depth 120 mm, Width 255 mm, Length 920 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1884.113.5 PR Cat other PR nos: 2972

Research and responses

This appears to be the instrument represented in the figure 'African Guitar' on page 341 of The Illustrated London News, Vol. 9 (no. 239, for the week ending Saturday 28 November 1846), where it illustrates the article 'African Curiosities' about the material brought back from Africa by Captain Denham after his surveying voyage to the coast of West Africa on the Avon, from 27 September 1845 to 17 August 1846. [JC 18 8 2010]

An announcement in the 'Sales by Auction' section of The Times (no. 27,942, Thursday 5 May 1874, p. 16, col. a) of the sale of Admiral Denham's 'ethnographic' collection reads: 'The Collection of Natural History Specimens and Native Weapons, &c., of Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Denham, formed during the voyage of H.M.S. Herald. Mr J. C. STEVENS will SELL by AUCTION, at his great Rooms, 33, King-street, Covent-garden, W.C., on Friday, March 6th at half-past 12 precisely, the MUSEUM of NATURAL HISTORY SPECIMENS and NATIVE WEAPONS and ORNAMENTS, collected by Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Denham in the South Sea Islands, consisting of rare birds, shells, minerals, insects, &c., carved wood spears, clubs, bowls, ivory ornaments, musical instruments, native dresses, &c. Also some stuffed birds in cases, heads and horns, minerals and fossils, &c. On view the morning of sale, and catalogues had.' [JC 21 10 2014]

This object is referred to in note 5 on page 54 of 'A "Shiplike" String Instrument from West Africa, by Klaus Wachsmann, in Ethnos, Vol. 38, nos 1-4(1973), pp. 43-56. Referring to the article that appeared in The Illustrated London News in 1846 (see above), Wachsmann writes: 'A harp lute brought to England from the Guinea Coast by Henry Mangles Denham in 1846 (Anonym. 1846: 341), to which Mr. William Blair kindly drew my attemtion resembles a lora in many details, except for the neck, which is curved.' (Copy of article in RDF.) [JC 9 11 2017]

Associated publications

For a brief, illustrated account of the small collection from HMS Avon apparently acquired by General Pitt-Rivers from Henry Mangles Denham, see 'A "Costume of a King" from West Africa, by Jeremy Coote, in The Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford Newsletter, no. 71 (June 2011), pp. 1 and 3. This item is illustrated in colour on page 3. Caption (same page) reads: 'Harp with gourd resonator with bow shaped hole in the bottom, 5 strings and 4 wooden strips running through animal skin membrane, from the Pitt Rivers founding collection. Early documentation describes it as a guitar from Central Africa: country, cultural group and collector unknown.' (Copy in RDF: Biographies, H. M. Denham.) [JC 1 6 2011] For the history of the collection of which this is probably part, see ‘“African Curiosities” from the Voyage of HMS Avon, 1845–1846: Historiographical Notes on a Forgotten Collection”, by Jeremy Coote, in Journal of the History of Collections, Vol. 31, no. 2 (2019), pp. 221–237 [published online on 14 June 2018 at https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy010 ]. Illustrated in colour as Figure 7 on page 227. Caption (same page) reads: ‘Harp-lute; wood, gourd, animal skin, and plant material; 920 mm long, 255 mm wide, 120 mm deep; made by 1845–6. Acquired in West Africa during the voyage of HMS Avon in 1845–6; part of the collection of Henry Mangles Denham; acquired by Augustus Henry Lane Fox (later Pitt-Rivers) at the sale of Denham’s collections held at Stevens, London, on 6 March 1874, and donated by Pitt-Rivers to the University of Oxford in 1884; part of the “founding collection” of the Pitt Rivers Museum (1884.113.5). From a photograph taken for the Museum by Malcolm Osman in 2011. Courtesy and copyright, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.’ Also illustrated, in the form of pencil sketches ascribed to A. W. Franks, in Figures 10 and 11 on page 230. Captions (same page) read: ‘Pencil sketch by A. W. Franks of the “African Guitar” in the Denham collection, in a notebook in the Department of Britain, Europe, and Prehistory at the British Museum (Franks 11, p. 55). Courtesy and copyright, The Trustees of the British Museum’, and ‘Pencil sketch by A. W. Franks of the “African Guitar” in the Denham collection, in a notebook in the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum (AOA, Franks Add ss7, f.11). Courtesy and copyright, The Trustees of the British Museum.’ Also discussed in note 30 on page 236: ‘More accurately described as a “harp lute”, the early date of this instrument makes it of particular importance. In a personal communication, Nomi Dave of the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virgina, provisionally identifies it as a kamele ngoni, and suggests that it was probably made in Mali. Somewhat surprisingly, it has not – to my knowledge – been published before. Making the only scholarly reference to the ILN article that I am aware of, Klaus Wachsmann notes that Denham brought a harp lute to England in 1846, though he had no knowledge of its later history or its survival at the PRM; Klaus Wachsmann, “A ‘shiplike’ string instrument from West Africa”, Ethnos 38 (1973), p. 54, n. 5.’ This object is also listed as number 5 in the Appendix on page 233: ‘Harp lute. Described in the article in the ILN and figured in the engraving entitled “African Guitar”. Listed in the “Green Book” (see note 20) as item 35 “African Guitar”. Inv. no. 1884.113.5.’ Printout of whole article in RDF: Biographies: Denham (Avon). [JC 15 6 2018, 6 9 2019]

Search terms: Music, Musical Instrument, Zither, Harp