The Orlandini-Corsini harpsichord Painted and gilded wooden harpsichord, the doors, flap, lid and sides decorated with historiated scenes on the theme of music, the reverse of the flap painted with the coats of arms of the Florentine Orlandini and Corsini families, the boxwood and amourette keyboard with four octaves (lower notes lowered by one note), the inner cypress case with double bridge and double nut (the parchment rose window probably brought back at a later date; with a music drawer under the keyboard, resting on a five-legged double baluster base topped with a frieze of gilded foliage. Italy, probably Florence, late 17th - early 18th century H. 93 cm - W. 197 cm - D. 84 cm PFD Minor accidents and restorations, notably to the decoration on the legs. Provenance : Former collections of the Orlandini-Corsini families, Sale Paris, study Ribeyre, 14, 15 November 2006, lot 343 (with the indication of the provenance of a Bordeaux château). This harpsichord was restored in the 1980s by Anthony Sidey. Comparisons between harpsichord decorations and recorded painters of the same period are rare and often difficult to make. However, several attributions have been made to Italian painters such as Luca Giordano (1634-1705) and Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734), notably for a fragment of a harpsichord lid in the Musée du Louvre (inv. MI 866), as well as Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) for a harpsichord lid in the National Gallery in London (inv. NG 94), and more recently for a lid attributed to Pietro Paolo Bonzi (1576-1736) in the Antoine Tarantino Gallery in Paris. The subjects of the decoration sometimes illustrate scenes on the theme of music. This is true of the harpsichord in the Château de Beaulieu collection, but also of the harpsichord by Andreas II Ruckers (1607-1655) in the Musée de la Musique in Paris and the harpsichord by Jacob Stirnemann (1724-1790) in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. The harpsichord was probably the most important musical instrument in Europe until the end of the eighteenth century, and its history is summed up perfectly by Michel Brenet in his Dictionnaire pratique et historique de la musique (1926): "For a period of nearly three centuries, the harpsichord played an extremely important role in musical practice. Not only were all the works of virtuoso harpsichordists, from the middle of the sixteenth century until after the deaths of J.S. Bach (1750) and Rameau (1764), intended for it (since the vogue for the clavichord and the hammered harpsichord only became established with Emanuel Bach and Mozart), but it also held, alongside the lute and theorbo first of all, and then alone alongside the organ, the then essential role of basso continuo. Except, to a certain extent, in France, one could not conceive of performing chamber, concert, theatrical or even church music without the harpsichord. The Germans in particular were categorical on this point. The conductor sat at the harpsichord. It was around the harpsichord that the selected instruments of the "small choir" were grouped. Today, when the harpsichord is replaced by the piano in early music performances, the overall sound is distorted. The faults that eventually led to the abandonment of the harpsichord - its dryness, its coldness, the near impossibility of obtaining nuances of intensity, apart from the echo effects resulting from the opposition of two keyboards - had contributed to the creation of a special style of composition, in which masterpieces were produced, for these faults, which Couperin himself acknowledged in part, were, in his judgment, offset by just as many advantages: 'precision, sharpness, brilliance'. No drawing could be treated or played as an accessory; the arrangement of the counterpoint parts, their number and complication, took the place of dynamic effects; the subtle embroideries and ornaments wrapped around the main notes gave the illusion of sustained sounds. The wit and humour of the picturesque details occupied listeners who did not yet expect instrumental music to express very deep sentimental content. The harpsichord style reached its apogee in the eighteenth century with Couperin and Rameau in France, Domenico Scarlatti in Italy, and Froberger, Kuhnau, Handel and Bach in Germany.