Description
By the 19th century, the true lute had largely been replaced by the guitar. Around 1880, in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Eastern Europe, a trend arose of building guitars in lute-shaped bodies (rounded, ribbed backs).
These instruments were mainly used for salon music, folk music, mandolin orchestras, and amateur music societies.. The construction of the back is bowl-shaped back made from 10–30 ribs of wood (like a lute or mandolin) and the fingerboard is flat like a classical guitar. Lutes are tuned like a standard 6-string guitar, originally gut strings, later steel.
Lute guitar were used for Folk & salon music and very popular in bourgeois circles, often paired with mandolins and accordions. The shape evoked the historical lute, fitting into the late 19th-century neo-romantic taste. After 1930 their popularity declined due to the rise of jazz guitars, archtops, and the Spanish classical guitar (Segovia era). Today they are mostly considered curiosities or collector’s instruments, though they still appear at antique markets.
Go to collection Lute Guitars
