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If the above keyboard looks familiar it is because it features very prominently in a well known portrait of Handel, painted in London about 1726. In this painting the composer is shown at home, apparently writing out music, with his elbow resting on a walnut harpsichord. Michael Cole's identification of an instrument made by William Smith of London, now in the Bate Collection, Oxford, with Handel's harpsichord was featured (with a cover photograph) in Early Music, February 1993. Since then Michael Cole has made has made four copies of this instrument, including one for the Handel House Museum in Brook Street, where unhappily it has been badly affected by a fierce heating system in the floor directly beneath the harpsichord. However, there are three examples by Michael Cole in good playing order, located in three different countries. These harpsichords are made in walnut, with sycamore [maple] internal veneer. They have several distinctive features, notably William Smith's scheme for hiding the stop levers inside a walnut moulding surrounding the wrestplank, cutting a channel inside so that the brass stops on the nameboard are located centrally to fit in with the decorative inlaid design ― a unique feature. The compass is five octaves (Smith's harpsichord is one of the earliest examples), and there are two sets of unison strings. The solid walnut lid is adorned with large ornate brass hinges. The total length of the harpsichord is six feet eight inches (2.05m) and it stands on a trestle frame with baluster-style turned legs (which can be disassembled for ease of transport). |
