Wherever the lute is played by many people, all sorts of provisions are necessary to enable them to do so. At the most basic level, it must be possible to buy an instrument and the strings required for it. So this raises the question of how lutenists in the 17th century, both professionals and amateurs, came by their instruments and their strings. As is so often the case, our information is provided once again by the correspondence of Constantijn Huygens, along with archival sources.

In the 17th century, just as today, there would in principle have been two ways of obtaining a lute: ordering a new one from a lute maker or looking for an available second-hand instrument in the circuit of fellow lute players. The latter method has the disadvantage that the lute is not brand-new and may have hidden defects, but the advantage is that the instrument has already been played in and can be approved beforehand, both by the buyer and by impartial experts. Judging by the available documentation, both methods seem to have been in use in the Dutch Republic.

The lute trade

Let us begin with the lute trade, and in particular with Constantijn Huygens’ attempts to purchase lutes. He was continually searching abroad, and then expressly for old instruments and not those made to order. He was mostly after antique lutes from Bologna (Plate 16), by renowned builders like Laux Maler and Hans Frei, who were both German by birth and made great numbers of lutes in Italy in the first half of the 16th century. Huygens was not alone in this preference for Bolognese lutes. Another well-to-do Dutchman, the aforementioned Joan Thijs, had bought an instrument by Laux Maler in 1648 for 80 guilders, and the professional lutenist Jacques Gaultier also played a Maler. In 1622 Huygens met Gaultier on his third visit to England, and he was to remain in contact with him, also as a middleman, in his attempts to get hold of a good lute.

Jacques Gaultier (c.1600-1652) was a famous French lutenist, who spent a great deal of his life in the service of the English king. He was, incidentally, no relation of the prominent lutenists Ennemond and Denis Gaultier.