Enrique Garcia 1901

Enrique Garcia rare classical guitar from 1901 - a true work of art and a treasure of guitar history!

Enrique Garcia was born in Madrid in 1868. Although he was the son of a guitar maker, Juan Garcia, he began an apprenticeship with either Manuel or Jose Ramirez I (or probably both) in 1883 and worked in Madrid for many years. In 1893, his guitars won first prize at the World's Fair in Chicago. Garcia was obviously very proud of this achievement, as he depicted it in pictorial form on his labels after the award ceremony. Shortly afterwards, in 1895, he left Ramirez and Madrid and went to Barcelona, where he set up his own business as a guitar maker. Garcia is considered the founder of the „Barcelona School“ or the „Catalan“ style of guitar making. His style influenced subsequent generations of guitar makers in Barcelona, including Francisco and Miguel Simplicio, Enrique Sanfeliu, Enrique Coll and Ignacio Fleta. Perhaps the most important hallmark of his style is the increased stiffness of his soundboards - his guitars usually had 8 asymmetrical soundboards instead of the traditional 7 - as does this guitar (notably - years later Ignacio Fleta increased the number of soundboards to 9). Garcia was probably the most sought-after and famous guitar maker at the turn of the century (1900). His reputation was truly international very early on, mainly thanks to Domingo Prat and Francisco Tarrega, who both played his guitars. By 1912, he had exported many of his instruments, especially to South America, where a flourishing and very important guitar scene developed, particularly in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Montevideo (Uruguay). His guitars have always been appreciated by artists and collectors for their intimate charm and unique style.

This is a wonderfully preserved example of a very fine guitar by Enrique Garcia.
The sound is great - great depth in every note across the entire register with a great bass and lyrical treble. It just has it all - very lively and „friendly“ with great charm and personality. Garcia instruments in this condition with this sound quality are hard to come by, so we are proud to present this very rare and collectible instrument from one of the great masters of the twentieth century.

It has a spruce top and rosewood back and sides. It has a scale length of 650 mm and a nut width of 51 mm.

The label states that the guitar was restored by Francisco Simplicio - we believe he made some adjustments to the tuners and repaired 2 cracks on the left side of the guitar. He did all this a long time ago.
The guitar comes with the original hard case and some old articles and documents.