---------- De : Philippe Mottet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date : Wed, 07 Jan 2004 23:50:10 +0100 À : Doctor Oakroot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Objet : Re: Girl with the Pearl Earing
le 7.1.2004 18:14, Doctor Oakroot à [EMAIL PROTECTED] a écrit : > It looks pretty realistic to me. > > >> The pistagne looks as if it was a whool twisted strand: I can't imagine >> the >> way you would realise this in wood. > > My guitarron (Mexican bass guitar) has a very similar border made from > alternating pieces of different colored wood. This kind of border is usual in french baroque guitar making, the members of the Voboam family (René, Alexandre and Jean) use it with slight variations, and call this a "pistagne". I have built several copies of these guitars, using alternating pieces of ebony and holly. What I don't understand in the Vermeer painting is that these pieces are twisted, in a way that would offer a maximum of difficulties to realise with pieces of wood, if ever possible. It is painted like a similar ornament that you would find on the border of a coat, made of wool. (Even a difficult motif like the one you can see on the original fingerboard of the Jaquemart-André vihuela would much simpler to realise that the "pistagne" of this Vermeer). This "pistagne" is irregular, the angle is not continuously the same. It goes straight around the table, not separated under the bridge in two flows going in opposite directions, as it usually is. >> The overall aspect is that of a french instrument, but the rosette is not in this style, as the french makers used two or three level roses. The one that Vermeer has painted is a flat rose like those you find in Stradivarius and Koch guitars. It is also golded, something I have seen on harpsichords, zyther, cimbalum, harp, spinett, but never on a guitar (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist). Philippe > > Certainly the rosette looks rather odd - but this may be something to do >> with the state of the painting.Can't tell from the online image. Looks like the rosette might be a > picture rather than an abstract design, but that's certainly believable. > >>
