The Andreas Ruckers Harpsichord (1646)

The harpsichord Andreas (I) and/or his son made, was a very popular, standardized model which was a staple of the Antwerp harpsichord school.

It was an instrument with a single manual (keyboard), consisting of 45 keys. It had two sets of strings: a set of long, voluminous sounding strings (8’ or 8-foot) and a shorter, sharper sounding set of strings that sounded an octave higher (4’ or 4-foot).

The instrument was most likely decorated with simple, glued-on, block-printed paper.

The sets of strings of an Antwerp harpsichord could be activated and deactivated with the help of stops placed on the side of the instrument.

With these stops the musician was able to shift the guides that held the jacks in place and thus engage and disengage the registers (i.e. the guides and the jacks). This enabled either the 8-foot or 4-foot register to be played separately or else in unison. It meant that a musician was able to lend ‘colour’ in a variety of different ways to the same piece of music.

(When the instrument was updated in the 18th century it received a third set of strings, which explains the third stop on the instrument's side.)

In 1962-1964 the harpsichord was restored by William Post Ross in the workshop of Frank Hubbard (Boston, USA).

During the restoration process Ross discovered that the instrument's internal framing had been completely altered as part of the ravalement. These changes had also been marked in pencil on the instrument's base plate. These pencil markings and the accompanying notes, written in Dutch, are extremely rare witnesses of the way harpsichords were updated in the 18th century.

The original soundboard of the instrument is still present. Its painted decoration is typical of the way Ruckers instruments were decorated: a combination of flowers and birds, and arabesques and other geometric patterns.

When, in the 18th century, the instrument was enlarged, the soundboard was enlarged as well. Part of the added wood can be seen on this photo: a straight strip, above the birds, between de wavy line and the side of the instrument. Painted flowers were added to give the soundboard a uniform look.

Antwerp harpsichord makers often embellished the keyfronts with gothic arcades cut in the wood or with glued-on parchment.

When this instrument was enlarged and its keyboard expanded, the keyfronts had to be redecorated. The decorator used leather and gold blocking. The result is quite stunning.

The keys were cut from lighter wood and inlaid with bone (rather than ivory) (the white keys or naturals) or cut from darker wood (the black keys).

When the instrument was enlarged, its original lid was replaced with a new one. The lids of Antwerp harpsichords were often decorated with block-printed papers and an instructive motto. Sometimes they were decorated with paintings made by great Antwerp artists.

When the instrument received a new lid, it was decorated in a rather unique way. The decorator cut out a number of engravings, glued them to the lid and colorised them. The central image is part of an engraving made by Claude-Antoine Littret in 1766. This engraving was, in turn, based on a painting by Carle van Loo, "Le concert du grand sultan" (1737).