Harpsichords
Kevin Fryer Italian
An Italian-style harpsichord built by Kevin Fryer of San Francisco in the late twentieth century.
About the Decoration
The instrument follows the Italian tradition of light cypress construction, with a single manual and a characteristically bright, plucked tone. Fryer's craftsmanship provided an ideal surface for painted decoration.
The lid interior features a Firenze cartouche — a formal cartouche in the Florentine manner, framing the instrument's provenance in gilded lettering against a richly ornamented ground.
The grotesque panels draw on the Renaissance vocabulary of fantastical creatures: monkeys, birds, and hybrid beasts inhabit a world of scrolling foliage and architectural ornament, painted in the manner of the sixteenth-century Florentine workshops.