The kobyz or qobyz,[a] also known as the kylkobyz,[b] is an ancient Turkic bowed string instrument, spread among Kazakhs, Karakalpaks,[1]: 114 Bashkirs, and Tatars. The Kyrgyz variant is called the kyl-kyiak [ky]).[1]: 63
Catalog entry at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Hermaphroditic deities held an important place in the ancient Greek pantheon and, later, in Renaissance humanism. Uniting female and male in a single being, the figures symbolize generative power, duality, transformation, and the union of opposites. The emblem book from Watson Library's collection, Picta poesis, presents these divine androgynes as an allegory of marriage.
Wikipedia article for Lira da Braccio
The lira da braccio (or lira de braccio or lyra de bracio[1]) was a European bowed string instrument of the Renaissance. It was used by Italian poet-musicians[2] in court in the 15th and 16th centuries to accompany their improvised recitations of lyric and narrative poetry.[3] It is most closely related to the medieval fiddle, or vielle,[4] and like the vielle had a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal pegs.[3]
This is the most elegant example of three extant small European stringed instruments dated to the early fifteenth century. Originally the instrument would have been strung with five gut strings, but whether it was played with a bow or plucked with a plectrum or fingers, remains unclear. The carved imagery relates to courtly romance and probably alludes to the rewards of fidelity in love. Cupid, armed with bow and arrow, hovers over the couple, a young man represented as falconer (the falcon denotes loyalty and trust) and a maiden with unbound hair who clasps his arm. A dog, likewise suggesting loyalty, sits at their feet. The rich iconography of the instrument unites art and music in the service of romance.
Catalog entry at Mimo International
Wikipedia articlefor Nyckelharpa
Nyckelharpa (Swedish: [ˈnʏ̂kːɛlˌharːpa], roughly "keyed fiddle" in Swedish, lit. 'key-harp', plural: nyckelharpor) is a "keyed" bowed chordophone, primarily originating from Sweden in its modern form, but with its historical roots scattered across medieval Europe. It is similar in appearance to a fiddle or violin but larger (in its earlier forms essentially a modified vielle), which employs key-actuated tangents along the neck to change the pitch during play, much like a hurdy-gurdy.
Catalog entry on MIMO International
Introduction and sound sample on YouTube
A bandura (Ukrainian: бандура [bɐnˈdurɐ] ⓘ) is a Ukrainian plucked-string folk-instrument. It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often called a kobza. Early instruments (c. 1700) had 5 to 12 strings and resembled lutes. In the 20th century, the number of strings increased initially to 31 strings (1926), then to 56 strings – 68 strings on modern "concert" instruments (1954).[2]
Catalog entry at the Musée de la musique
Wikipedia article for Charango
About 66 cm (26 in) long, the charango was traditionally made with the shell from the back of an armadillo (called quirquincho or mulita in South American Spanish),[3][4] but it can also be made of wood, which some believe to be a better resonator.
Sound sample and build process on YouTube
¡Ay triste, que vengo! on gittern
Detailed paper on the Wartburg Gittern (paywall)
Since 1860, the collection of the Wartburg Foundation in Eisenach has housed a small lute-like instrument that, based on the glued-in instrument label, is attributed to Hans Ott in Nuremberg, dated around 1450 and described as a gittern. This so-called Wartburg gittern has, to date, been considered to be one of the oldest surviving European plucked string instruments, is regularly mentioned in musicological literature and has often been ‘copied’ in the course of historical performance practice.
Edit: bottom two images are made by me, top image is from the Wikipedia article - color corrected to match my photos.
Catalog entry at the Musée de la musique in Paris
This is a roughly cello-sized instrument with 6 playable strings and 12 sympathetic strings, 18 in total. The catalog labels this instrument a "Viola Bastarda" which usually means a virtuosic and aggressive playstyle on a regular Viola da Gamba, not a type of instrument.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_bastarda
Sound sample of the bastarda playing style on YouTube
The soundholes in the form of flaming swords, the rosette, the sympathetic strings and the blindfolded head on the pegbox suggest that this instrument is part of the "d'Amore" family, a Bass Viola d'Amore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_d%27amore
So far I haven't found another instrument like this, maybe it's unique?
Catalog entry in Germanische Nationalmuseum
Concerning the origin of the baryton, Pamplin suggests that "the instrument probably originated in England in the early 17th century when the characteristics of two instruments, the viola da gamba and the bandora, were combined into one hybrid instrument".[4] Early evidence for the existence of the baryton is found in Marin Mersenne's work Cogitata Physico-Mathematica (1644).
The baryton was "completely neglected" (Hsu) in the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth, with the rise of the authentic performance movement in classical music, new barytons were built and played.
Catalog entry for the fac-simile
Catalog entry for the original
Sound sample on mimo-international
The mysterious aura of the vihuela de mano stems from the scarcity of the number of known instruments: until the 1970’s, we knew only one instrument that could be considered a vihuela, preserved at the Jacquemart-André museum in Paris.
The practice of mano vihulea in Spain in the 16th ecentury left an unprecedented musical repertoire and its cultural impact is felt in literary and iconographic sources. Despite this obvious importance, the remaining copies are now counted on the fingers of one hand and are all of different sizes and chords. Among these, the instrument possessed by the Royal College of Music in London, manufactured by Belchior Dias, presents a number of obvious analogies with the Vihuela of the Music Museum.
The Elbląg ‘gittern’: a case of mistaken identity. Part 1/2: Why the koboz was misidentified.
In 1986, an instrument identified as a gittern was found in a latrine in Elbląg, Poland, dated to 1350–1450. Having commissioned luthier Paul Baker to create a replica, the instrument that emerged was a puzzle, taking Paul and I on a journey of discovery to reveal the true identity of the recovered instrument.
12 metal strings in 6 courses
Sound sample of a cittern on YouTube
https://collectionsdumusee.philharmoniedeparis.fr/collectionsdumusee/doc/MUSEE/0161792
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suka_(string_instrument)
The Suka was a unique fiddle that was played vertically, on the knee or hanging from a strap, and the strings were stopped at the side with the fingernails; similar to the Gadulka. The body of the instrument was very similar to the modern violin, but the neck was very wide, and the pegbox was crude. This was thought to be the "missing link" between the upside-down or "knee chordophone" instruments, and the modern violin. It died out, and was known only from drawings of a single specimen displayed at an exhibition in 1888. It is a traditional Polish instrument.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/505719
The very small, shallow body of this viola d’amore gives it a quiet, lean sound. Mute violin-family instruments were generally used for practice in environments where a conventional instrument was too loud. This instrument’s scroll takes the typical form of a blindfolded cupid, representing the notion that "love is blind."
A bigger version of the viola d'amore. It has 21 strings in total - 7 playable strings and 14 resonance strings. Sound sample in an anechoic chamber
