Octobass

Uncommon card · No. 198244

The octobass is an extremely large and rare bowed string instrument, a larger three-stringed version of the double bass, first drafted by J.A. Dubois in 1834 and built around 1850 in Paris by the French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798–1875). The specimen in the collection of the Musée de la Musique in Paris - the only surviving original made by Vuillaume - measures 3.48 metres (11 ft 5 in) in length, whereas a full-size double bass is generally approximately 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length. The first international public appearance of the octobass was at the first world's fair, which took place in London in 1851. William Pole, an attendee of the 1851 world's fair, described the physical characteristics of the octobass and suggested some uncertainty about the instrument.

Read on Wikipedia · Image David Angelovich, CC BY-SA 4.0