Guitar

This small guitar of fanciful, serpentine form has six strings that pass over the tortoiseshell-covered fretboard in normal guitar fashion, and two bass strings placed to the left of the fretboard. Its maker accented the front of the wooden body with mother-of-pearl inlays and built up multiple ribs of stained wood, bordered by linear inlays (stringing) of lighter and darker woods to create the guitar’s curved, serpentine back. The head of the guitar ends in the carved head of a scowling creature, and the guitar’s body ends in a tail.