1940.9.21

Collection type

Object

Description

Mandolin, painted with the names of places the donor played it during WW1 [SM 18/07/2008]

Long description

Mandolin, painted with the names of places the donor played it during WW1. The mandolin body is inlaid with a marquetry floral design below the sound hole. The fretboard is inlaid with four circular pieces of shell. The headstock has eight ?bone tuning pegs. The side of the instrument is painted with place names of places the donor played between 1914 and 1918. They are "Peronne Somme Hermes Ypres Vimy Ridge Asiago Piave FRANCE BELGIUM ITALY". [SM 01/02/2008]

Geographical reference

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

England

Cultural groups

English

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Unknown Collector

PRM source Arthur A. Kennedy

Date / Period

Date made: Before 1914

Date collected

By 1914

Acquisition information

Donated: 1940

Materials and processes

Material Wood Plant, Material Animal Gut, Material Pigment, Material Metal, Material Shell, Material Bone, Process Carpentered, Process Painted, Process Inlaid, Process Grooved

Dimensions

Width: max 218 mm, Length: max 610 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1940.9.21

Research and responses

The donor worked at the PRM in 1939-1940, though it is not clear whether this was as an employee or as a volunteer. In his annual report, the Curator, T. K. Penniman notes: 'Mr. A. A. Kennedy is doing valuable work in restoring certain of our musical instruments to life [i.e. to 'playing condition'].' [HH 03/06/2010; JC 123 10 2011]

Associated publications

This object features in the First World War iBeacon trail launched in the Museum in January 2016. Full audio transcription available at: https://soundcloud.com/pittriversound-1/sets/ww1 [HA 07/01/2016] Illustrated in black and white as Figure 3 on page 123 of '"Captain Kennedy's Mandolin", and Other English Musical Instruments at the University of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum', by Alice Little, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 23 (2010), pp. 117-28. Also discussed at length on pages 122-125. (Copy in RDF: Researchers: Little, Alice.) [JC 20 12 2012] Illustrated in colour on page 62 of The Pitt Rivers Museum: A World Within, by Michael O’Hanlon (London: Scala, 2014). Caption (page 63) reads: ’46 (opposite) Mandolin, painted with the names of places where the donor played it during the First World War. Length 610 mm Donated by A.A. Kennedy 1940.9.21’ [MJD (Verve) 19/2/2016]

Search terms: Music, Musical Instrument, Lute