Louis Panormo, date unknown
Miscellaneous: 76634
Labeled, "Louis Panormo, the only Maker of Guitars in the Spanish Syle., 40 High Street, Bloomsbury, London, ...22.01.1838."
Length of back: 45.1 cm
Upper bouts: 23.0 cm
Middle bouts: 17.6 cm
Lower bouts: 28.9 cm
Notes:
This is a classic example of Louis Panormo’s guitar making. As his labels stated, it is constructed ‘in the Spanish style’: based on the plantilla (a template of one-half of the guitar face) used for guitars by the makers Juan and Josef Pages of Cadiz, with the ribs let into the top block and seven symmetrically placed fan-braces to support the belly. This model was first introduced ten years earlier, soon after the arrival in London of the Spanish guitarist Antonio Trinitario Huerta. Dendrochronology typically shows that Louis used 30–50-year-old seasoned spruce for his soundboards – this one is of one-piece, with the widest grain towards the bass side. The central portion of the rosette, with its mother-of-pearl inlay, is tastefully understated: the obvious influence comes from the work of Stradivari – the 1683 ‘Cipriani Potter’ violin and the c. 1688 ‘Hill’ five-course guitar, for example – demonstrating Louis’s connection with the violin making tradition. The head is unusually made from maple, almost certainly from the off-cuts of cello neck-blanks. James Westbrook