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Gallery of French Archcistres (18th C.)

The archcistre, also identified via the contemporary terms "exmanches" or "manches tourbés," was commonly used in France in the

Below you will find a selection of images of extant 18th century French archcistres (archcitterns) from museums and private collections. More information and images—when available—can be found by clicking on each [External Link].

NOTE: The instruments presented below are a selection of the overall extant instruments. For the complete list, see my Provisional List of Extant Archcitterns.

Description / Overview

Gallery of 18th Century French Archcistres

Round/lute back, lute front profile

Flat back, lute front profile

Flat back, short asymmetrical front profile

Flat back, extended/elongated asymmetrical front profile

Description / Overview

The archcistre, also identified via the contemporary terms "exmanches" or "manches tourbés," was commonly used in France in the latter part of the 18th century and was used for both continuo and for solo playing. The fretted courses were tuned like the French cistre, (low to high) E-A-d-e-a-c#'-e', while the basses were typically tuned (low to high), A'-B'-C#-D-D#. [For more complete information on tunings and strings, see AMH Custom Strings: Cistre / Guittare Allemande strings.]

Archcistres can be broadly split into two categories: those with a rounded bowl/lute back and those with a flat back. Of the flat-backed type, three different front profiles emerge: lute shaped, a short asymmetrical shape, and an extended or elongated asymmetrical shape. The two asymmetrical shapes may have been created to make more soundboard available as a method of increasing the auditory volume of the instruments.

A major and significant contemporary source of information about the archcistre is Joseph Carpentier's Methode pour apprendre en peu de temps à joüer de l'instrument appellé cytre où guitthare allemande, II.eme partie. (Paris, c.1773). In his introduction, Carpentier tells the reader that he sets out to cover eight main topics related to the construction of the cistre/archcistre, including:

the woods that should be used—whether the instrument is strung in wire or in gut(!)
the shape the instrument should have, including the length, width, and depth of the corpus
how the soundboard of the instrument should be braced (he notes different bracing patterns for different shapes)
the type and quality of wood that should be used for the soundboard, as well as its thickness
the fingerboard, including measurements for the correct and accurate placement of the frets
information about the types and gauges of strings that should be used
the correct pitch (i.e. pitch standard) of the instrument so that it can play with other instruments
the measurement for extended necks on archcistres

According to Carpentier, the archcistre should have an open, fretted string length of around 18 ½ pouce (French inch), which correlates to the approximately 50cm mensur found on many extant instruments. (For cistres strung in gut, Carpentier recommends 21 pouce—roughly 57.5cm.) For the extended neck, he suggests that the length from the nut of the fingerboard to the the nut of the second pegbox should only be 8 ½ to 9 pouce more, at most, which would put the bass diapasons at around 75cm; however, many extant instruments show more than this, in the neighborhood of 80-85cm.