1950 Ignacio Fleta SP/MH

This 1950 Ignacio Fleta is a classical guitar with a spruce top and rare quilted mahogany back and sides, made in Barcelona in the years when Fleta built guitars only now and then.

A Rare Pre-1955 Fleta

Fletas from before 1955 seldom come up for sale: in those years Fleta's main work was violins, cellos and other bowed instruments, and guitars were the exception. This one, from 1950, is unusual even among them – the back and sides are a very rare quilted mahogany, and the detailing features ornate marquetry, rarely seen on the plainer, more understated Fletas made after 1955.

Ornate Details in the Barcelona Tradition

The rosette is built around the standard Fleta mosaic – the same pattern his grandson Gabriel Fleta still uses today – framed on both sides by full herringbone, which continues around the edge of the top. Half-herringbone purfling runs along every edge of the mahogany back and sides.

Early Fletas like this one link the ornate guitars of the late Enrique García and of Simplicio/Sanfeliu with the more conservatively built instruments of Coll and of Fleta himself after 1955.

Sound

The sound is absolutely stunning – old-world in character, dark and mysterious. This is a full-sized instrument with enormous power, even by modern standards, able to fill a hall of any size. Truly a one-of-a-kind instrument, among the more unique and rare we've ever seen.

Ignacio Fleta: Master Guitar Maker of Barcelona

For performers and collectors alike, the name Ignacio Fleta (1897–1977) ranks among the elite handful of 20th-century luthiers. Trained in Barcelona as a maker of violins and cellos, he built mainly bowed instruments from the late 1920s until 1955, when he decided to devote himself to the guitar. Countless scores of the finest players in the world have played his instruments – among them Andrés Segovia, John Williams, Angel Romero, Turibio Santos, Alirio Díaz and Marcelo Kayath.

Ignacio Fleta e Hijos: Three Generations

By the mid-1960s Fleta's sons, Francisco (1925–2003) and Gabriel (1929–2013), had become his partners in the workshop – which is why the labels from then on read "Ignacio Fleta e hijos" (Ignacio Fleta and sons). After Ignacio's death in 1977 the brothers carried on, and today Gabriel's son, Gabriel Fleta Jr., continues the family workshop in its third generation. Many dozens of Fletas have passed through our doors over the years.