Flemish Harpsichord - Image 1

Harpsichord making in the Low Countries (present-day Belgium and the Netherlands) during the first five and a half decades of the seventeenth century was dominated by the two workshops of the Ruckers family in Antwerp. One of these workshops was headed by Joannes Ruckers, who was succeeded upon his death in 1642 by his nephew, Jan Couchet; the other was headed by Andreas Ruckers, who was succeeded by his son Andreas. Gommaar van Everbroeck (b. ca. 1603/04-d. after 1666) was presumably one of the many employees in the first of these shops, since Couchet's wife, Angela vanden Brandt, was the godmother to van Everbroeck's newborn twins in 1649. The vacuum left by the deaths of Jan Couchet and of both Andreas Ruckers senior and junior in the mid-1650s provided opportunities for makers like van Everbroeck to set up on their own. Thus, van Everbroeck entered Antwerp’s Guild of St. Luke as a master harpsichord maker in 1655-56. Tellingly, the soundboard of the van Everbroeck harpsichord was painted by the same anonymous artist who previously had decorated soundboards exclusively for Joannes Ruckers and Jan Couchet. This, the only surviving harpsichord by van Everbroeck, displays the maker’s adherence to the Ruckers-Couchet tradition of design, workmanship, and decoration. It is particularly important as a rare example of a 17th-century Flemish harpsichord that was not altered in the 18th century, either in its decoration or its musical resources. It retains its original keyboard with bone-covered naturals, bog-oak sharps, and a 50-note compass. Antwerp harpsichords were made to delight not just the sense of hearing but also that of sight. Their interiors, in addition to opulently painted soundboards, were traditionally decorated with woodblock-printed papers. Several of the wide variety of these paper patterns available in Antwerp are found on the NMM's van Everbroeck harpsichord. The interior of the lid features paper printed in imitation of the distinctive wood grain of Hungarian ash, over which is lettered a Latin motto, 'Reader, neither the author nor the work requires your praise: the work glorifies the author; the author [glorifies] the work.'