La Serena is the collection's most recent instrument, built in 2024 and acquired the same year. Javier Mengual signed it personally at the Alhambra factory in Muro del Alcoi, Valencia, distinguishing it from the unsigned production that surrounds it at the same tier. It establishes the contemporary endpoint of the Valencia school in the collection.
The Alhambra 10FP is the factory's highest production tier. Mengual's signature is not a marketing distinction. It is a statement of individual accountability for the instrument. Signed examples at this tier surface infrequently in near mint condition.
La Serena is paired with La Castellana (Alhambra Luthier Series, Jaime Julia, 2002) as the collection's two signed Alhambra instruments - documenting the Alhambra luthier tier across twenty-two years of production. The Valencia school spans from El Abuelo (Sanchis Nácher, c.1945) through La Serena (2024) - nearly eighty years of continuous documentation. The full lineage context is covered in the ANICETO University curriculum.
| Instrument Name | La Serena · The Serene One |
| Maker | Javier Mengual · Alhambra 10FP · Muro del Alcoi, Valencia |
| Year | 2024 |
| School | Valencia · Alhambra |
| Type | Flamenca Negra |
| Top | Spruce |
| Back & Sides | Rosewood |
| Label | Alhambra 10FP · Signed Javier Mengual |
| Collection Role | Valencia School · Contemporary production endpoint |
| Acquired | 2024 |
Label confirmed. The instrument has been professionally inspected and conserved to museum standard, with all interventions fully reversible. Its structural and provenance record is maintained privately under museum archival standard.
La Serena sits at one end of the Valencia school arc in this collection: 1945 at one end, 2024 at the other. The school's negra tradition, its warmth, its sustained voice: all of it is present in both instruments. Eighty years separate them. The construction logic is the same.
The story of this guitar is in the curriculum.
The Alhambra production tiers, the Valencia school, and the distinction between signed and unsigned production is documented in the ANICETO University curriculum.
Explore the Curriculum