Purfling

Purfling is a narrow decorative edge inlaid into the top plate and often the back plate of a stringed instrument. Inexpensive instruments may have no purfling and instead simulate the appearance with paint.

Purfling was originally made of laminated strips of wood, often contrasting in color as a visual accent. The earliest known example of purfling is on a violin made by Andrea Amati in 1564, now on display in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. It consists of two outer strips of pearwood stained black and an inner strip of poplar.