In the 1840s, the artist, inventor and musician, William Sidney Mount, invented a new type of violin. He recieved a patent in 1852. The violins came in both a trapezoidal and an 'guitar-shaped' form. Both types, instead of having a carved top and back, utilized bent flat plates, the top being convex and the back concave. For this reason, Mount's instruments are sometimes called "hollow-back" violins. There were other differences from regular violins, such as the reverse sound holes on his guitar-shaped instrument.

By all acounts, these instruments were extremely loud for their size; which is what Mount was going for, as he wanted to be heard above the other instruments when performing on fiddle. Apparently, the Cradles of Harmony were too loud for orchestral use and Mount was not that dilligent at marketing them or having them manufactured in great numbers. Only a few instruments survive today.

Rickert & Ringholz Musical Instruments, in collaboration with Fiddarci Lutherie are working on an exact replica for a certain museum. In the mean time, we built a larger baritone fiddle loosely based on the Cradle of Harmony, utilizing the bent top and back plates, but using a different sound hole design inspired by a somewhat earlier French violin by Chanot. The photos below give you the basic idea of where we followed and also departed from Mount's creation. The result is a violin which, while having the same vibrating string length as a regular violin, has incredible power, depth and VOLUME, without amplication.

Click on any image for a larger view.