Copy of a ‘French’ model Ruckers harpsichord
Made in
Edinburgh by Grant O’Brien in 1985
Details about
the soundboard painting
The soundboard of this
instrument is decorated in the usual way with a rosette and paintings of
flowers, fruit, insects and birds.
Scalloped blue borders outline the bridges and the edges of the
soundboard and wrestplank, and elaborate blue arabesques fill out what would
otherwise be empty, undecorated areas of the soundboard. The paint used was prepared using only the
traditional pigments available in the seventeenth century and using raw gum
arabic as a medium. The blue arabesques
were painted using smalt (ground cobalt glass) and also used raw gum arabic as
a medium. The date, as was usual in
Ioannes Ruckers harpsichords made before 1617, is painted near the middle of
the wrestplank.
The painting of the soundboard
and the casting and gilding of the rosette were all carried out by Grant
O’Brien.
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