# Harpsichord > Jan Couchet the Elder - ca. 1650 (original single-manual instrument); case, second keyboard and fourth register added by an unidentified rebuilder, probably first half of the 18th century > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/jan-couchet-the-elder/couchet-harpsichord-ravalement-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-11 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Jan Couchet the Elder - **Date:** ca. 1650 (original single-manual instrument); case, second keyboard and fourth register added by an unidentified rebuilder, probably first half of the 18th century - **Medium:** Wood and various materials (pine case, poplar or linden soundboard, ivory-covered keys on the added keyboards, gilt gesso and tempera decoration on a gold ground) - **Dimensions:** Instrument: 232 x 29 x 86 cm. Stand: 234 x 90 x 76 cm. - **Object type:** Musical instrument - **Period:** Flemish, 17th century, enlarged in the French-influenced ravalement style of the 18th century - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Musical Instruments - **Attribution:** disputed ## Summary A harpsichord that is, physically, two objects wearing one skin. Jan Couchet the Elder, grandson and successor of the Ruckers workshop of Antwerp, built it as a single-manual instrument around 1650. An unidentified craftsman, probably working within the following century, cut the case open, lengthened it by five inches, built in a second keyboard and a fourth row of jacks, and matched the existing gilt strapwork so precisely that the join was invisible until the keyboards were removed from the case.The Metropolitan Museum has owned it since 1889, as part of the founding gift of Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown's Crosby Brown Collection, and catalogues it under Couchet's name and date alone. The first technical study of the instrument, published in this museum's own journal in 1969, argued that the rebuilder wanted it that way: an enlargement built specifically to be mistaken for an original two-manual Couchet, rather than admitted as a later hand's work.What survives is neither a pure Couchet nor a pure product of the rebuilder's shop, but a working record of both, folded into a single case that documents Flemish harpsichord practice on both sides of a hundred-year gap. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1650** Jan Couchet the Elder workshop, Antwerp `[documented]` (origin) Built as a single-manual harpsichord, probably with a range of fifty-four notes (four octaves and a fourth) and two rows of jacks plus a buff stop, by Jan Couchet the Elder in his Antwerp workshop. Couchet inherited the workshop of his uncle Joannes Ruckers on the latter's death in 1642 and was himself a grandson of Hans Ruckers the Elder, founder of the Antwerp dynasty. The reconstruction of the original compass and disposition is not documentary; it is inferred from physical evidence in the surviving case, keyboard blocks, pinblock and bridge, set out in full by Edwin M. Ripin in 1969. - **undated** Unidentified rebuilder `[disputed]` (ravalement) The case was extended, a second keyboard and a fourth row of jacks (a close-plucking register unknown in Flanders before the eighteenth century) were added, and the front board and lid were replaced. Ripin dates the work to the eighteenth century on the evidence of the ivory key coverings and the documented late arrival of the close-plucking register in Flemish practice, but the rebuilder left no signature, mark, or date, and Ripin argues the omission was deliberate: the decorative match is close enough that the enlargement was meant to be undetectable. Whether the rebuilder worked in Antwerp, in the Flemish tradition the instrument itself displays, or was a Parisian craftsman working in a Flemish idiom, has not been resolved in the sources consulted for this record. - **-1889** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, dealer, or location is documented between the presumed date of the rebuilding and the instrument's appearance in the Crosby Brown gift in 1889. How and when it left Antwerp, whether it passed through France, and who commissioned the ravalement are not recorded in the sources consulted. - **1889-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (gift) Entered the Metropolitan Museum as part of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, assembled by Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown and given to the museum beginning with an initial gift of 270 to 276 instruments accepted by the trustees on 18 February 1889; she continued giving instruments until her death in 1918, by which point she had given the museum more than 3,300 pieces. The specific source from which she or her agents acquired this harpsichord before 1889 is not documented in the sources consulted for this record. ## Open questions - Who rebuilt the instrument, and where? Ripin's argument that the rebuilder worked within the Flemish tradition, in or near Antwerp, rather than in Paris where most Ruckers-Couchet ravalement is otherwise documented, rests on internal decorative and technical evidence, not on a name, date, or archival record, and does not appear to have been tested since 1969. - When exactly was the instrument rebuilt? The dating rests on the use of ivory rather than bone on the keys and the documented late arrival of the close-plucking register in Flemish practice, both of which indicate the eighteenth century broadly but not a specific decade. - Where was the instrument between the presumed date of rebuilding and its appearance in the Crosby Brown Collection in 1889? No owner, location, or transaction is documented in the sources consulted for this record. - How and from whom did Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown or her agents acquire this specific harpsichord before donating it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1889? The general history of the Crosby Brown Collection is well documented; the individual acquisition history of this instrument is not, in the sources consulted. - Does Stewart Pollens's 1997 Metropolitan Museum Journal study of the museum's Flemish harpsichords and virginals revise, confirm, or add evidence to Ripin's 1969 conclusions about this instrument specifically? This record could not access the full text of that article and flags it as the first source to consult before any further revision. - Is the instrument currently on public display? The Metropolitan's Open Access API records no gallery number for this object as of the date of this record, which typically indicates storage rather than exhibition, but this could not be independently confirmed against the museum's own object page during research. ## Sources - [1] Edwin M. Ripin, 'The Couchet Harpsichord in the Crosby Brown Collection,' The Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 2 (1969), pp. 169-178. The full technical study this record is primarily built on: physical evidence for the original single-manual configuration, the case extension, the gesso and decoration analysis, the pinblock and bridge evidence, the dating argument, and the concealment thesis are all drawn from this article. - [2] Gaspard Duarte, letters to Constantijn Huygens dated 3 May 1648 and 5 March 1648, translated by Raymond Russell in The Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959), p. 150-151, as quoted and cited in Ripin 1969 (source 1). Primary documentary evidence for Couchet's export-pitch practice. - [3] Wikipedia, 'Ruckers,' for Hans Ruckers the Elder's 1579 Guild of Saint Luke membership and general family and workshop history. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with Grant O'Brien, Ruckers: A Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition (Cambridge, 1990) or the primary Antwerp guild registers. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Couchet,' for Jan Couchet the Elder's dates, apprenticeship, workshop inheritance, family and descendants, and the approximate surviving-instrument count. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with Boalch's Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord, 1440-1840, or O'Brien's Ruckers monograph. - [5] Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object 503614 (accession 89.4.2363): accession number, accession year, object date, dimensions, medium, credit line, department, culture, and public domain status. Also consulted for the two comparandum instruments illustrated in this record: object 503676 (Double Virginal, Hans Ruckers the Elder, 1581, accession 29.90) and object 505004 (Muselar Virginal, Joannes Ruckers, 1622, accession 11.176.1). - [6] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, WebSearch synthesis of museum articles on Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown and the founding and growth of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments (1889-1918), including the 18 February 1889 trustees' meeting and total gift figures by 1918. Tertiary synthesis; flagged for replacement with the primary museum articles 'Missionaries Making Music: Building Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown's Collection' and 'The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments: Its Origin and Development,' Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), which this record could not access directly due to repeated HTTP 429 errors from metmuseum.org during research. - [7] WebSearch synthesis of Boalch (Donald Howard Boalch, Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord, 1440-1840) maker-profile data for the Couchet family, including Petrus Joannes Couchet's 1655/1656 Guild of Saint Luke mastership. The Boalch database itself (boalch.org) returned an HTTP 403 error when fetched directly and could not be consulted as a primary source; this citation should be replaced with a direct citation to Boalch before publication. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. 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