N E W 5 - O C T A V E H A R P S I C H O R D S
I N T H E N E A P O L I T A N S T Y L E
The Second Soundboard Rosette Design
Taking inspiration mostly from the soundboard rosettes in the anonymous Neapolitan harpsichord Catalogue number 1 in the Beurmann Collection, now housed in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg:
Click here to see a larger version of this soundboard rosette
Drawings were made by Grant O'Brien based on this design to give a second new rosette design to be used in some of the new 5-octave instruments. The model followed is of the usual deep, 'wedding cake' style of rosette in several layers separated by paper spacers characteristic of the rosettes in many Neapolitan instruments. Each of the top four levels has four layers: a top layer of thin wood, below this a layer of parchment, a second layer of thin wood and at the bottom a layers of gilt parchment. The wood layer is represented in these drawings by a tan colour. The top level (on the left below) is glued to the top of the soundboard and the other three layers are all located below the soundboard and separated from one another by paper spacers. Not shown is a large circular parchment 'tree' at the centre of the bottom level and six small parchment 'trees' fixed to the interior apices of the main star polygon that forms level two.
Top level Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
Click on these drawings to see larger versions of each of them.
Click on the drawing above to see a large version of the drawing of the whole rosette.
Go to the main page about making the rosettes
