DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68274#0186
Dutch and Flemish Furniture
instruments, and owing to the exquisite paintings with
which the case and top, both inside and out, were orna-
mented, the clavecin, harpsichord, or spinet was fre-
quently the handsomest and costliest piece of furniture
in the house. The case and legs were subject to changes
in fashion. Sometimes the stand is simple with heavy
ball feet connected by stretchers, as shown in Plate
XXIII, a Lady Playing the Spinet, by J. M. Molenaer,
in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam. Sometimes the
instrument stands on baluster legs and arches; and
sometimes case and stand are of lacquer in the prevailing
taste for the Chinese style. The top was always deli-
cately painted, as shown in the picture just referred to ;
and it is interesting to note that in nearly every case
where a lady is playing an instrument, she rests her foot
upon a foot-warmer.
Without being able to see the internal mechanism, it
is difficult to define the precursors of the pianoforte from
their outward appearance in the pictures.
These instruments were so beautifully decorated
that the clavecin-makers of Antwerp ranked as artists
and became members of the St. Luke's Guild of that
city. They were first enrolled as " painters and sculp-
tors," and not as clavecin-makers.
According to a parnphle entitled Recherches sur les
Facteurs de Clavecins et les Luthiers d'Anvers, by the
Chevalier Leon de Burbure (Brussels, 1863), at the end
of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries,
the clavichord was in greater vogue than the clavecin,
and about 1500 the clavecin had been made into the
clavichord shape in Venice and called the spinet. The
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instruments, and owing to the exquisite paintings with
which the case and top, both inside and out, were orna-
mented, the clavecin, harpsichord, or spinet was fre-
quently the handsomest and costliest piece of furniture
in the house. The case and legs were subject to changes
in fashion. Sometimes the stand is simple with heavy
ball feet connected by stretchers, as shown in Plate
XXIII, a Lady Playing the Spinet, by J. M. Molenaer,
in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam. Sometimes the
instrument stands on baluster legs and arches; and
sometimes case and stand are of lacquer in the prevailing
taste for the Chinese style. The top was always deli-
cately painted, as shown in the picture just referred to ;
and it is interesting to note that in nearly every case
where a lady is playing an instrument, she rests her foot
upon a foot-warmer.
Without being able to see the internal mechanism, it
is difficult to define the precursors of the pianoforte from
their outward appearance in the pictures.
These instruments were so beautifully decorated
that the clavecin-makers of Antwerp ranked as artists
and became members of the St. Luke's Guild of that
city. They were first enrolled as " painters and sculp-
tors," and not as clavecin-makers.
According to a parnphle entitled Recherches sur les
Facteurs de Clavecins et les Luthiers d'Anvers, by the
Chevalier Leon de Burbure (Brussels, 1863), at the end
of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries,
the clavichord was in greater vogue than the clavecin,
and about 1500 the clavecin had been made into the
clavichord shape in Venice and called the spinet. The
124