Guitar

Guitar

Joseph de Frías (attributed)

Details

Dimensions
Total length: 948 mm
Origin
Spanish
Department
Musical Instruments
Holding institution
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
License
CC0-1.0
Credit
Purchase, Clara Mertens Bequest, in memory of André Mertens, 1992

Art Genome Taxonomy

10 tags

Artistic Disciplines

  • Music Both · 99%

    The Metropolitan Museum of Art identifies the object as a guitar and chordophone; the image clearly shows a fretted neck, strings, sound hole, bridge, and tuning pegs.

Subject Matter

  • Related to Music Metadata · 99%

    The museum classifies the object as a guitar and a chordophone—lute, plucked, fretted—indicating its relationship to music.

Visual Qualities

  • Highly Ornamented Visual · 98%

    The sound-hole rosette, bridge surrounds, lower-bout motifs, edge details, and decorated fingerboard produce an extensively ornamented surface.

  • Symmetrical Visual · 92%

    The guitar’s body and decoration are organized around a pronounced vertical axis, with centered neck, sound hole, bridge, and paired ornamental elements.

  • Single Object Visual · 99%

    The photograph presents a single guitar isolated against a plain gray background.

Time Periods

  • 18th Century Art Metadata · 97%

    The catalog dates the guitar to circa 1780, within the eighteenth century.

Geographic Regions

  • Spanish Art Metadata · 95%

    The recorded place of origin is Spanish, and the maker is described as Spanish and active in Seville and Cádiz.

Materials

  • Wood Both · 99%

    The catalog lists spruce, rosewood, cedar, and ebony; the visible body, neck, and sides have the appearance of wood.

  • Inlay Both · 88%

    The catalog lists mother-of-pearl, while the image visibly shows contrasting decorative inlay around the sound hole, bridge, and lower bout.

Antiquities, Artifacts, and Religious Objects

  • Musical Instrument Both · 99%

    The catalog identifies the object as a guitar, and its visible construction is unmistakably that of a stringed musical instrument.

Source & rights

Joseph de Frías. Guitar. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.