Made in Amsterdam : a 1771 cittern by Benoit Joseph Boussu

Cittern-family instruments enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 18th century, most notably in the British Isles and France. Many such instruments from these countries have survived in museums and private collections. This ‘guittar’ fashion also took root in the Netherlands, although very few Dutch-made, late 18th-century citterns have survived. The recent rediscovery of an Amsterdam-made cittern by Benoit Joseph Boussu, previously only known about from written sources, adds another example to this small but important group of Dutch-made instruments. In this article, the Boussu cittern is comprehensively described, based on visual observations, endoscopy and CT-scanning, techniques that also enable a detailed analysis of its inner construction. The instrument’s provenance and the biography of its maker are also discussed. These analyses lead to the conclusion that a cittern, of equal quality and appearance to British and French instruments, had already been built in the Netherlands as early as 1771, and included in its design an innovative watch-key tuning mechanism