Lyre-guitar

A musical instrument of the chordophone family, the lyre-guitar was a type of guitar shaped to look like a lyre, popular as a fad-instrument in the late 1800s.

It had six single courses, with a fretboard located between two curved arms recalling the shape of the ancient Greek kithara.

It became very much in vogue and pervaded the highest levels of society; Marie Antoinette played one[2] and the great guitarists of the day such as Ferdinando Carulli, Fernando Sor, Matteo Carcassi, Mauro Giuliani, and Pierre Jean Porro wrote music and method books for it.

Its decline coincided with the waning of the popularity of the guitar as a salon instrument, increasingly supplanted by the piano which benefited from ongoing improvements to its keyboard action.

The idea was to create an instrument which looked pretty and provided a visual accessory to help ladies of fashion to assume the gracious pose of Greek kithara players.