Images from The Rawlins Gallery The Cutler-Challen Choral Mandolino by Stradivari, 1680 NNM 6045.  Choral mandolino, The Cutler-Challen, by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1680. Authentic signature written in ink on the inside of the central rib: Antonio Stradivario in Cremona 1680. Although best known today for his bowed stringed instruments, the surviving patterns and relics now housed at the Civic Museum in Cremona show that Stradivari made all kinds of other stringed instruments, as well. This choral mandolino is one of only two that are known, the other being in private hands in London. The Museum also has one of his surviving guitars (NMM 3976, The Rawlins), another of which can be seen at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University in England. His only known harp is at the Conservatory of Music in Naples. Although such instruments, unlike his bowed stringed instruments, were superseded by more robust designs - The Cutler-Challen, which survives with its original wood case, is "as light as a feather" - most of them are exquisite examples in a long continuum, as in the case of the mandolin family, that has yet to come to an end. Restoration by Andrew Dipper, Minneapolis. Ex coll.: Christopher Challen, Horsley-Stroud, England. Purchase funds gift of Mr. & Mrs. Richard A. Cutler, Sioux Falls, 1997.   Click arrow to continue Rawlins Gallery Tour Go to Rawlins Gallery Tour Index Go to Virtual Tour Index Go to Checklist of 16th-17th-Century Instruments Go to Checklist of Plucked Stringed Instruments Made Before 1800 A postcard of this mandolin is available from the Gift Shop National Music Museum The University of South Dakota 414 East Clark Street Vermillion, SD   57069 ©National Music Museum, 2001-2004 Most recent update:   March 11, 2004 You are the 21,131st visitor to this page since August 1, 2001. College of Fine Arts The University of South Dakota Return to Top of Page