MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: INSTRUMENT TYPE

(Chordophones - sound is produced by stretched strings)

Chordophones: stringed instruments

The Horniman Museum has a wide variety of stringed instruments including guitars, lutes, lyres, harps and members of the violin and viol families. Some of these can be viewed in the Music Gallery, where displays enable stringed instruments from around the world to be explored and studied side by side. Important stringed instruments from the Arnold Dolmetsch Collection are on display in a section dedicated to Dolmetsch and the Haslemere Festival.

Many of the stringed instruments in the Horniman's collections were obtained individually; others are contained within distinct collections. The Percy Bull Collection, which was acquired in 1948, has some 300 stringed instruments from Europe, Africa, India and Asia. The Usher collection includes a number of important guitars. Keyboard instruments are also part of the collections. These and other stringed instruments not on display can be viewed by appointment. Some of these instruments are included in our online catalogue.

Featured examples