P3 has note
| - Glass Virginal
1604-20
Princely inventories occasionally mention furniture decorated with glass. This instrument was perhaps intended for display in an elaborate collection, but it was also designed to be played. It is the most ambitious surviving examle of glass decoraion, showing the variety of virtuoso effects that could be achieved on a miniature scale. The ducal workshops of Shloss Ambras, near Innsbruck, were a centre for the technique.
Austria (Innsbruck) or Germany (Nuremberg)
Softwood, partly gilded glass, and silk; enamelled silvered plaques (two replaced with paper); stamped and gilded leather case
Museum no. 402-1872 [2015]
VIRGINAL
Possibly Austrian; c. 1600
The body and keys are covered with slips of enamelled copper, edged with coloured glass and the inside of the lid consists of 18 panels of coloured glass in high relief representing tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The instrument's range is forty-five notes, C/E - c3 and the jacks and quills largely original.
Keyboard Catalogue No.: 10
There was a "Musical instrument made all of glass, except the strings" in the hall of Hampton Court, mentioned by Paul Hentzner, a German traveller in 1600. A few comtemporary European objects of about that date survive that were decorated in this way and probably under Venetian influence. There is a similar glass covered casket on display in Gallery 3, thought to have been made in Innsbruck.
402-1872 [pre September 2000] (en)
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