Pochette d'Amore

Dancing was an expected aristocratic accomplishment. Instruction was given at home by a visiting dance master, who played a small fiddle to provide music for the lessons. The compact, slender shape of these instruments made them easy to transport and gave them the name pochette, which suggests that they were carried in one's coat pocket.

While most pochettes were small violins, this example is a viola d'amore with five melody strings and four sympathetic strings, which are not played, but ring "in sympathy" with the bowed strings.

Description: Shallow box with sloping shoulders and light yellow varnish. The back and front edged with ebony and ivory inlay. Flaming sound-holes. Long pegbox, with nine pegs, decorated in black and white ivory inlay on either side, and terminating in a blindfolded head. Five melody strings and four sympathetic strings, tuned by the higher pegs.