What is the name of the musical instrument shown in the picture?

The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces violin-like sounds from a hand crank-turned, rosined wheel which rubs against its strings. A keyboard enables melodic sounds and a sound board and hollow box accentuate the sound of the strings, as in other acoustic stringer instruments.

The hurdy-gurdy is generally believed to have originated from fiddles in either Europe or the Middle-East around 1100 A.D.

A large instrument called an organistrum was one of the earlier forms of the hurdy-gurdy. It had the body of a guitar with a very long neck into which the keys were set. It’s unwieldy size required two people to play it; one to turn the crank handle while the other pulled the keys.

In the 14th Century the organistrum was made smaller to let a single player both turn the crank and work the keys. By the end of the renaissance period this ‘solo organistrum’ had developed into guitar and lute shaped hurdy-gurdy variants which formed the basis of the modern instruments still played today.

The instruments are often used in folk music, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. For many years now they have also been the focus of revival events across other European countries, including Spain, France, Italy and Germany.