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Where are all the really old ouds?

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freya - 4-6-2006 at 05:09 PM

Really very Oud-like...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-6-chord-Lute-by-Johann-Christian-Hoffmann-...

Harry

kasos - 5-29-2006 at 08:07 AM

Hi. This is billed as a mandolin - probably because of its size - but has features of lute/oud construction, including at least five courses and the absence of frets. Some pretty amazing ornamentation, who knows how old it is....

All the best, Mark

http://cgi.ebay.com/AMAZING-MANDOLIN-FROM-THE-1500s-YES-OVER-400-YE...

Arto - 5-31-2006 at 10:28 AM

The "mandolin" mentioned above pops up at eBay regularly, has many times been discussed at Mandolin Cafe message board, and never sells. The type is early mandolino, Lombardian mandolin or whatever you like to call the type (purists disagree among themselves), but anyway it represents the "soprano lute" type of early mandolins (gut strings tuned in fourths, strings tied to the bridge, no cant on the top). It should have tied frets, like a lute.

The consensus among Mandolin Cafe experts seems to be that this monster is very highly suspicious in its "authenticity", very definitely is not from 16th century, and may well be a 19th century forgery. The price is outrageous.

greetings, Arto

Pictures of the oldest (?) known oud !

Danielo - 11-5-2010 at 07:57 AM

Hi,

This is a old thread, but one of my favorites on this forum...

I managed to find pictures of Brussel Museum's Egyptian oud, which seems to be
(according to al-Halabi, who I trust fully) the oldest in existence, from the beginning of the XIXth century :

regards,

Dan

jdowning - 11-6-2010 at 12:27 PM

An interesting oud. Has anyone contacted the Brussels Museum for more detailed information? If not I will do so as part of my current ongoing investigation into early oud/lute geometry.
The rosettes appear to be 'set in', flush with the sound board surface unlike more modern ouds. The 5 piece sound board is wonderfully 'rough' - slab cut 'wild' irregular grain with pin knots etc. - unlike any more modern oud or early lute. Anyway it does seem to closely match the oud engraving in Napoleon Bonaparte's beautiful, monumental and historically important publication (10 volumes and 2 anthologies) "Description de l'Egypte' (complete modern edition of the engravings published by Benedikt Tashen, 1994, ISBN3-8228-8964-4 - paperback, text in French, German and English).

Another rare early 19th C oud is one made in 1826 by Armenian luthier Armenak Kalfayan that can be seen (among other fine examples of late 19th/ early 20th C ouds) at:

http://www.varjouds.com/armenian_oud.htm

Dr. Oud - 11-6-2010 at 03:14 PM

I can't verify this, and I forgot where I found it, but my notes say: 1786 Persian oud by Nisan.

jdowning - 11-9-2010 at 12:42 PM

I have been in touch with the curator of the Middle Eastern Instrument collection, Saskia Willaert, at the Museum of Musical Instruments in Brussels concerning the old Egyptian oud mentioned in a previous post.
Apparently there are two old Egyptian ouds in the collection - #164 acquired in 1871 and #404 acquired in 1879. Saskia is planning to send me images of the ouds that the museum has in hand next week some time so I will post an update once I receive them.

fernandraynaud - 11-9-2010 at 03:42 PM

"I can't verify this, and I forgot where I found it, but my notes say: 1786 Persian oud by Nisan."

Wow! And I thought that way back then they used to be called "Datsun"!

And the one from Brussels has that certain "made from a clothing drawer" je ne sais quoi. And the action is a smidge high. I think they make them better nowadays, practice you know, like, for instance there's this factory called Gawaret El Fan, they have been making PROFESSIONAL ouds since 1640 on Muhamed Ali street ...

Jonathan - 11-9-2010 at 07:54 PM

This thread gets better and better! Doc, any chance you have any more pics of the Nisan oud?
Also, do you happen to know if it is Nisan, or does the s have the cedilla underneath it?
Thanks. It's really fascinating, as is the one posted by Danielo

Danielo - 11-10-2010 at 12:54 AM

Yes Doc's oud is also very interesting

It is curious that on this oud, as on old egyptian ones as well, the pickgard is slanted. Was it because the oud was not played with the strings parallel to the floor at that times ?

The Egyptian oud from Brussel is indeed quite rough, but was it a good representative of the instruments made during this period ?

Maybe back in the XIXth century, there were already tourist ouds ... Villoteau bought a conversation showpiece of the hang-on-the-wall type

Dan

jdowning - 11-10-2010 at 06:02 AM

Hard to say how representative the Brussels oud is of the period without many more examples. The other oud in their collection might help a bit in this assessment once that information becomes available.
Would the 'rough looking' sound board significantly affect acoustic performance? Perhaps we are today conditioned (by the luthier supply industry) to assume that sound boards must be made from fine grained spruce or cedar, cut perfectly 'on the quarter' with zero grain 'run out' etc etc. (although few sound boards rarely are I suspect).
Interesting that during the 16th/17th C in Europe trees were selected for sound boards based upon the distinctive resonant sound that the logs made as they were being slid on ice chutes out of the forests during the winter period (source Remi Gug, FoMRHI Comm 1011). So wood selection then was not based solely upon grain characteristics.

Although it is not possible to be precise - as the image is not full face and the oud is not perfectly symmetrical - a preliminary geometrical analysis of the oud image posted by Richard seems to be a close fit with the profile of the Al Arja (Lebanese) oud owned by ALAMI. This might help to confirm that there are distinct regional characteristics for early ouds. In this case the characteristics of an early oud from Lebanon may be pretty much the same as one from neighbouring Syria - which would perhaps be no surprise.

jdowning - 12-14-2010 at 11:57 AM

I have just received images of the two 18th C. 'Egyptian' ouds in the collection at the M.M.I. museum, Brussels (thanks to Museum staff members Saskia Willaert and Anja van Lerberghe).

They are full face and side views of both instruments - low resolution but sufficient to allow a preliminary assessment of the geometries. These will be covered in detail later on the 'Old Oud compared to Old Lute' thread on the forum.

The difference in the oud profiles is obvious and a bit surprising. Oud cat#0164 looks very Turkish in design compared to the longer, narrow profile of oud
cat#0404.
Note the lute style end clasps on the bowls, the deep section bowls and the lute style straight pegbox on # 0164. The rosette on #0164 seems to be 'cut in' like a lute and a similar design motif based on a geometry of intersecting circles can also be found on some lutes (e.g. a lute by Wendelin Tieffenbrucker, Padua, 1600 in the instrument collection of the Kuntshistorisches Museum, Vienna.
The rosette design on #0404 cannot be determined from the image.

Danielo - 12-14-2010 at 01:13 PM

This is great thanks John ! Those two instruments seem really of different origin..

It is interesting that the bowl's profile of the second one has the same feature at the tail end as Nahat ouds (that is explained by Jameel here in his great blog).

I'm also intrigued by the slanted pickguard on the same instrument, that we find also in other old egyptian ouds (but not in Syrian or Turkish ones if I'm not mistaken). Does it reflect a particular way of holding the oud in the Egyptian tradition (the pegbox pointing upwards)?

Dan

Danielo - 1-24-2011 at 07:20 AM

I answered to myself the question about the slanted pickguard on old ouds

See :

From Les harmonies du son et l'histoire des instruments de musique, J. Rambosson, 1878.

In passing, the drawn instrument is very similar to #0164 in Brussel's museum..

Dan

aytayfun - 1-24-2011 at 02:39 PM

I have two girls. The older one was borne in 1895 and the young one borne in 1906. Their midwife was Emmanuel Venios. :cool:

David Parfitt - 2-8-2013 at 05:28 AM

Here is a photo of the Ben Harbit oud in the Dar Batha Museum, Fez, Morocco:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sixesandsevens/6608098213/

Ararat66 - 2-8-2013 at 06:42 AM

Wow !!!

Leon

David Parfitt - 2-8-2013 at 02:18 PM

This one doesn't look that old, but it's in a museum and quite unusual with all those microtonal "fret" markings, so thought it was worth posting it here:

http://www.ville-ge.ch/meg/musinfo_public.php?id=063524

Any idea as to the maker??

David Parfitt - 2-11-2013 at 01:52 AM

And here's an oud in the British Museum with no maker details:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=3456701&partid=1

jdowning - 2-11-2013 at 05:34 AM

Interesting to note the strip of leather (?) glued to the sound board edge at the bottom of the bowl. This may have been a protective strip against wear for oudists who hold the instrument in a more or less horizontal position - the forearm resting in this location?

I have seen similar strips on the oud arbi but not on other ouds - except for the old oud in my collection (see attached image). I purchased this oud in Cairo in 1963/4 so have always assumed it was 'Egyptian' but it has a number of 'unusual' features including 'fret position inlays' on the fingerboard, a non arabic style (?) rosette, a lute like reinforcing plate at the bottom interior of the bowl and - a faux leather strip at the bottom of the sound board. Interestingly there is no edge banding under the strip so the strip must have been an original feature possibly providing additional stiffness to the sound board in this area in the absence of the usual tail block? (see attached image).

Note that the Trustees of the British Museum allow downloading and restricted (non commercial) use of high definition images of many of the images in their vaste archive collection of photos of artifacts, engravings etc.
One only has to register and then request images on an individual basis as required. These are then downloaded (free) to your email address by the Museum. A very useful service for the researcher.

http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=4187#pid274...

[file]25810[/file]

David Parfitt - 2-11-2013 at 11:06 AM

Quote: Originally posted by jdowning

Note that the Trustees of the British Museum allow downloading and restricted (non commercial) use of high definition images of many of the images in their vaste archive collection of photos of artifacts, engravings etc.
One only has to register and then request images on an individual basis as required. These are then downloaded (free) to your email address by the Museum. A very useful service for the researcher.

http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=4187#pid274...

Thanks, I hadn't realised they offered that service. I'll try and get hold of a curator too, to see if they have any more info on the maker of the oud or can photograph the label.

All the best

David

jdowning - 2-11-2013 at 04:04 PM

To register for the free BM image service, go to the link previously posted by David and click on the "use digital image" button below the image of the oud. This will take you to the registration page with details of how to register and the conditions applicable for use of images. For new applicants click on the "Register for our free service" link towards the bottom of the page.

It has been a while since I last used the service but it usually takes a day or two before a requested image is delivered - probably because download is not automatic and there is human intervention at the Museum end to approve each request.

I haven't checked but I imagine that there may be other images of the same oud available? There would most likely be a charge for the preparation of any custom images not already on file.

Jono Oud N.Z - 2-11-2013 at 11:18 PM

Beautiful old ouds! :applause:

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