Russell Collection of Early
Keyboard Instruments

The carnation between the bird group and the wreath was relatively undamaged. Small type III retouches occurred where a shim had been inserted and which passed through some of the leaves. Type III paint had been used to touch up the fringed edges of the petals; it had been blobbed on and had now turned a yellowish grey.

The bird group had been fairly extensively added to and over-painted. The bird itself had been at some time touched up to hide a shim which had been inserted. This had given way and the shim was removed during this restoration and a fresh one fitted. The type III retouches, which extended beyond the area of the earlier shim, were removed, as also were two repaints which had been added to cover up a scratch and a dirty patch on the bird's breast feathers. The dirty patch, which appeared to be old varnish, was taken off with a scalpel and the paint underneath this and the other repaints was found to be in good condition. The scratch, and the wood of the new shim were carefully inpainted. The trunk of the tree was very worn and had been touched up with type I repaint. The foliage and the landscape area had been partly repainted, and a mixture of type II and type III repaints were found.

On top of this repainted area there were some small groups of blobs and strokes in the bright non-matching green typical of the type II repaint. They show up clearly in P 713.D.6/55 (Plate 25). This was the only place on the soundboard where type II repaint was discovered on top of a type III addition. It was in the course of removing these that the remains of the scallops were discovered. There was no trace of a resist area beneath the paint along the edge of the soundboard, nor was there any original paint left beneath the bush at the right hand end of the landscape although its silhouette was indicated by a resist. The bush was replaced with one which stylistically resembled several other smaller bushes which were part of the original landscape.

Retouching and varnishing
After the repaints were removed, and the soundboard photographed in detail in its fully cleaned state, the areas which needed retouching were isolated with MS2A shiny varnish. The retouches were carried out in Paraloid B72 in xylene using Shellsol 'E' as a retarder. The pigments used were: flake white, ivory black, raw umber, orange madder, cobalt blue, chrome yellow, yellow ochre and crimson lake. In some cases intermediate varnish layers were required. The retouches were sealed in and the soundboard and wrestplank varnished finally using a spray application of MS2A.

OBSERVATIONS MADE DURING RESTORATION

Part 1
Absence of a decorative border along the soundboard edges
The absence of a decorative border along the edges of the soundboard and around the bridges is unusual on decorated French harpsichords of the eighteenth century, and gives the soundboard the effect of being rather sparsely painted However, the course which a border would have followed was seen to be occupied by an undulating band, slightly more darkly stained than the remainder of the soundboard wood, and averaging about 2.5cm wide.

We noticed that it contained a scratch line, following the same course, 7.8mm from the mouldings and bridges (except where the bass ends of the bridges showed signs of alteration and along the edge of the soundboard which is adjacent to the jacks). The darkly stained area was not obvious on the wrestplank, but the scratch line was present around the nuts. These facts made us suspect that there had originally been a border, and this hypothesis was proved to be correct when the blackened tips of scallops were found at the edge of the soundboard where they had been covered by the repaint which extended the bird group (P 14a.334.J/35) (Plate 27).

The dark band can be explained as resulting from the removal of the scallops. These must have been washed or scraped off, and the resulting disturbance of the grain would have meant that when the stain was applied it would have been more readily absorbed in these areas. The scratch line, which was intended as a guide for the layout of the scallops, runs through the whole of the stamped inscription 'REFAIT PAR PASCAL TASKIN A PARIS 1784'. These letters are edged with red paint as though the punches were dipped before being struck, and it would have been impossible to have removed the paint of the scallops and left the red paint undisturbed if the two had been present on the soundboard together. It follows from this that by the time Taskin struck his inscription, the scallops were no longer there. The presence of only the tips of a few scallops at the edge of the soundboard adjacent to the registers, shows that the soundboard was cut away, presumably to accommodate an extra row of jacks. It is generally accepted that Taskin was responsible for increasing the number of registers from three to four, and as there were scallops along this edge of the soundboard when this widening took place, it seems likely that scallops would have been present in all the usual places. It follows from the above that if scallops were present on the instrument when Taskin widened the register slot, but were not present by the time he stamped his inscription on the wrestplank, he must have been responsible for their removal.

Part 2
The rose and its surround
We were asked to investigate particularly the paint of the cast rose and the brown band in the hope of finding out something more about the origin of the instrument. As part of this investigation we took and mounted sections from the paint layers of the bevelled edge of the soundboard surrounding the rose, and from the rose itself. We were able to establish that the cast rose had originally been gilded, that it had then been covered with a layer of red paint (vermilion), and this in turn had been varnished and another layer of gold leaf applied. Another coat of varnish formed the topmost layer. On the bevelled edge of the soundboard wood, greyish paint (lead white + smalt) was present as the bottom layer. The upper part of this layer contained a high proportion of blue particles, but it was not possible to establish, even from the mounted section, whether these two layers had been applied at different times. Over this fairly thick layer was a red paint (vermilion) and above this again, varnish, gilding and a final layer of varnish. There was no varnish between the greyish paint and the red paint.

It was just possible that traces of the name of the maker of the instrument might have survived beneath the brown paint surrounding the rose. This layer of paint was extremely thin, and when looked at under raking light, the undulations of the early and late wood bands showed clearly through it, but no trace could be seen of anything resembling lettering. If a maker's name had existed, it must have been thoroughly removed. We noticed during this inspection that at the point where two repaired leaves occur between a blue flower and the brown band (P30.319.J/35) (Plate 3), the soft early wood was worn away, leaving the late wood standing up in ridges - an effect which is the reverse of that occurring on the remainder of the soundboard, and one which suggests abrasion, possibly sanding.

Partly because the cast rose is believed to have been replaced in 1784, and also because the leaf design painted in bronze powder on the brown band accords closely in style with the interior decoration of the casework (see section on casework), it had been suggested that the brown band also dates from the Taskin rebuild. The presence of the grey paint on the bevel suggests that the brown band was not the first painted surround to the rose because traditionally, on decorated soundboards, the rose was encircled with grey and blue bands which bore the maker's name. The fact that the brown paint of the band lies on top of the bevel decoration means that it must have been applied after the cast rose and the bevel had been decorated, because the vermilion paint and the varnish form an uninterrupted film across the rose and the bevel; but we have no means of determining how much time elapsed between the decoration of the rose and the addition of the brown band.

Part 3
The resists and the soundboard stain
When the soundboard of this instrument was examined carefully, even prior to cleaning, lighter coloured areas which related to the outlines of the painted groups could be seen. When the varnish was removed these areas became still lighter than the surrounding wood. We deduced that the stain, which had been applied to darken the wood, had been prevented from taking in these areas by the resists which must have been present on the soundboard at that date although they are now no longer there. In subsequent cleaning the resists must have been removed and the varnish which was applied afterwards had the effect of preventing the dirt from becoming ingrained in the newly exposed wood of these areas.

It did occur to us that the resists might not be resists at all, but merely places which the craftsman who stained the soundboard had missed when doing the staining in his effort not to go over the flowers with the stain. The soundboard was carefully examined with this possibility in mind and many places were found where the resist extended beyond the tips of flower petals and leaves, and had produced shapes which could only have been created by working from inside the area and not by cutting around the outside edge.

There were in addition, other places where the stain had been applied right up to the edges of groups or had overlapped onto them and had degraded the colour. Stain was also present beneath the extension to the bird group and beneath the two added groups on the wrestplank which have since been removed.

In these places the stain was not as dark as it was on the rest of the soundboard where it had afterwards been covered with varnish, but its presence proved that the staining had been carried out before the first restoration of the soundboard, although it is not possible to say definitely that Taskin was responsible.

Part 4
The red paint and the varnish
We noticed during cleaning that all the red painted areas reacted very similarly to solvent. Our attention was focused on the problem particularly when it came to clean the wrestplank of varnish. Here, the punches which had been used to strike Taskin's inscription, the string gauge lines and the numbers, appeared to have been dipped into red paint. This red paint was so sensitive that it was difficult to remove the varnish by any means and leave the paint untouched. A similar situation occurred when we attempted to remove a layer of varnish which had been applied to the interior of the casework around the wrestplank. Here the red paint gave way before the varnish with nearly every solvent tried.

When the cast rose was investigated and a layer of red paint was discovered beneath the gilding, it too, was tested, and was found to be readily attacked by all but the mildest solvents. This suggests that all these areas of red paint have the same binding medium, and the National Gallery analysis has shown that the vermilion pigment used in each case has similar particle characteristics. It is possible therefore, that they were applied at the same time, or at least, in the same workshop.

The mouldings around the edge of the soundboard were coated with a thick, treacly-looking varnish which was applied over gold leaf, and thus far corresponded with the layers on the cast rose. In the case of the rose, however, the layer beneath consisted of solvent-sensitive red paint, whereas on the moulding below the gilding was bronze powder and varnish, beneath this again paler bronze powder (possibly the same period of application but less oxidized), and finally red casework paint. In the mounted section the paler layer of bronze powder is not apparent, but it was quite distinct in the test section cleaned.

Where the paint layers overlapped at the junction of the moulding and the casework, we found that two layers of red paint had been applied to the casework. The bottom layer was painted straight onto the wood, covering the moulding and the casework The bronze powder in varnish layer, which had been applied after this, extended a little way up the side of the case and its edge had been covered over (and tidied up) by a further application of red paint to the casework. The edge of this layer just overlapped onto the moulding and was just overlapped in turn by the top layer of gold leaf and varnish on the moulding (see drawings of mounted sections).

The juxtaposition of these layers suggests that the gold leaf on the moulding which was so sensitive to solvents, is likely to have been a later application. The layer of bronze powder beneath was more resistant to solvent and must have been contemporary with the application of the casework paint since its edge was sandwiched between two red layers.

Part 5
The casework paint
We understand that it was not unusual for Taskin to scrape down to the bare wood, the casework of an instrument which came into his workshop to be rebuilt. Although we still took sections from the casework paint in an attempt to throw light on his methods of decoration, we thought that we would probably not find evidence of earlier decoration, and in this we were right. On the cheek piece where another piece of wood had been added, the gesso layer was quite thick - perhaps 2mm. At the bottom of this layer we found fine threads, as though muslin had been pasted onto the wood before the gesso was applied. The section we took from the bentside where no thickening piece had been added also showed a thick layer of gesso with no trace of any paint other than the black lacquer of the upper surface. The raised, gilded decoration had been built up by applying gesso on top of the black casework paint, applying a further layer of black over the gesso, and finally by applying the gilding or bronze powder. (See drawing of mounted section). The decoration on both the bentside and the cheek had been built up in this way. The spine too, had been thickened by adding an extra piece of wood along its length, but no traces of paint could be discovered remaining between the layers.

Two versions of a spray of leaves and flowers had been used for the bronze powder decoration around the soundwell. The painting of these had great delicacy and charm, and stylistically appeared to relate closely to the decoration on the outside of the case. We felt that the decoration on the brown band around the rose was, if anything, very slightly inferior in quality, and wondered, in view of the sensitivity of the brown paint, whether it might not have been accidentally damaged and in part repainted. Although the results of these investigations are rather negative, it is possible that more evidence will come to light if the casework is cleaned.

TENTATIVE CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
The evidence which has enabled us to make the following deductions is contained in the text of the report, mainly in the section "observations made during restoration".

1764 Soundboard decorated on unstained timber with resists, using water soluble medium, and with borders. The rose may have been the fake Couchet one, or another one, and there was almost certainly an inscription round it.

1784 Taskin widens the register slot; alters the position of the bridges; may have inserted the Couchet rose. It was probably he who removed the inscription surrounding it and replaced it with the brown band since it would hardly have been to anyone else's advantage to do so later. If he altered any of the painted groups, the alterations or additions are likely to be almost indistinguishable. He removed the scallops; added the string gauge lines and numbers and his inscription. He may have stained the soundboard but he did not varnish it.

Repairer 1. Added the groups to the wrestplank. He added to the bird group to bring it down to the edge of the soundboard. He improved the petals of the carnation and repainted outlying tendrils and leaves around the wreath. In general he touched up and "improved". He may have cleaned the dirt off the soundboard with a damp cloth, or possibly attempted to remove the stain, going round the flower groups but damaging the outlying bits, hence the touching up. He may have also removed the resists in the process, and, if Taskin was not responsible for adding the stain, he was. If he removed the resists he did not stain the soundboard. He varnished the soundboard with a varnish which went very dark and tough in time (possibly oil-copal).

Repairer 2 (l9th/20th Century). He removed most of the previous repairer's varnish and in doing so damaged several of the groups. He may have used a water-borne solvent such as ammonia, and could have been very confused by the different reactions of the original paint and the additions of the previous restorer. He must have damaged the chrysanthemum group and the anemone on the wrestplank, and have removed the wrestplank tulip. He also rubbed over the addition to the bird group and added some retouches to it himself. He repaired the cracks in the anemone in the tail, the pomegranate flower and in the bird group, where he repainted a bush and the end of the landscape to cover up new shims. The paint he used for touching up could have been egg tempera since by 1976 it was only soluble in morpholine but had not darkened or yellowed. He may have used two types of shim to repair the splits, a single strip for a wide crack and shavings off a plane for thin cracks. If repairer 1 did not remove the resists he did.

The third set of repaints may have been done by repairer 2 immediately before, or during the varnishing; or they may have been done on the occasion of a still later restoration by a repairer 3. Repairer 2 used a soft resin varnish since either repairer 3 or myself had no difficulty in removing it. If there was a repairer 3, he too must have used a soft resin varnish.

PAINT SAMPLES
Samples were taken during the course of the work as the opportunity presented itself. Where the original paint remained undamaged by earlier cleaning, it was in good condition and it was decided not to take samples from the original flower paintings. Samples were taken where slips of wood had accidentally become detached from the wrestplank during the work of removing the tuning pins and plugging the holes. Other sampling was confined to the surround to the cast rose and to the casework.

Samples RB/01-07 were sent for analysis. RB/01-04 and 07 for pigment. RB/05 for pigment and medium, and RB/06 for varnish. Of the remainder of the samples, RB/11-14 and RB/16 and 17 were mounted and sectioned, and the remainder were retained for record purposes.

In the drawings given of the sections, the diameter of the circle in each case is equal to l mm.

Sample RB/01. Wood, red paint and varnish from between the 5's of the 8' tuning pins. The red paint was used in the cuts which marked the changes of string gauge. This pigment may be the same as sample RB/05. Neg. 22a.318.J/35 (Plate 2).
Result. Associated with the Taskin rebuild 1784. A slightly orange-red vermilion of very fine, even particle size.

Sample RB/02. From beside the short 8' g tuning pin. Wood, green paint and varnish. The green paint is from the stem of the tulip; one of the few original flowers on the wrestplank. Neg.26.319.J/35 (Plate 2).
Result. Unfortunately there was very little pigment present in the sample; what there was had become almost inextricably enmeshed in the wood fibres. It is, however, clear that the green colour is given by a mixture of prussian blue and a yellow pigment, probably a yellow lake pigment. (The green is fairly transparent and has no marked crystalline character; in its appearance it resembles a lake pigment.)

Sample RB/03. From the band immediately surrounding the rose. Red paint from under the gilding. The red paint is coated with varnish and is very friable. This sample will contain a small quantity of the grey paint beneath because the surface of the grey layer was relatively rough. The red paint is very sensitive to solvents in the same way as the red casework sample RB/05 is. Neg.30.319.J/35 (Plate 3).
Result. Vermilion, very similar to that found in sample RB/01.

Sample RB/04. Greyish paint containing blue particles from the band immediately surrounding the rose. It forms the bottom layer and is therefore likely to contain some particles of the red paint above it and some fragments of the wood beneath. Neg.30.3l9.J/35 (Plate 3).
Result. Lead white mixed with smalt.

Sample RB/05. Red casework paint taken from an area on the edge of the wrestplank where the paint had overspilled onto a layer of glue and could therefore be easily split off. Neg.32.320.J/35 (Plate 3).
Result (Pigment). Vermilion, as in RB/03. (There seems to be no difference that is at all obvious between the three samples of vermilion examined RB/01, RB/03 and RB/05. All are the same orange-red colour and have similar particle characteristics. The only difference between the vermilion from this harpsichord and that from the green harpsichord is that a larger particle size was found in the vermilion in the uppermost paint layer, (iii), in sample G1.
Result (Medium). Some glue would seem to be present, little or no gum. The paint layer broke up with warming with chloroform. There appeared to be a resinous material extracted, with some wax. Unfortunately the gas chromatograms gave very poorly resolved peaks and it was not possible to confirm the resinous portion.

Sample RB/06. Scraping of varnish from soundboard between the wreath and the 8' bridge. Neg. 36.320.J/35 (Plate 3).
Result. This sample gave a weak indication for glue only. The sample was leached with hot methanol since there appeared to be wax present. (Polish?). (Probably residue from the Robersons cleaning paste. A.M.). A resinous extract was obtained as in RB/05. Once again the gas chromatograms were very poorly resolved, presumably a result of the polymer present. After further treatment to clean up the methyl esters a satisfactory chromatogram was eventually obtained. This again suggested that some form of oil/resin mixture had been used, the resin being of the Pinus type.

Sample RB/07. Sample of bright blue-green paint from shim passing through the leaves of the pomegranate flower at the treble end of the soundboard. This is a repaint which may date from the Dolmetsch restoration. It absorbs U.V. light strongly and did not match the original green paint. It could only be dissolved slowly using morpholine but it showed no sign of having yellowed. Neg. 25.325.J/35 (Plate 4).
Result. Probably mostly prussian blue mixed with a little malachite (probably artificial, green bice). Trace of chalk present (?) and possibly a trace of lead white.

Sample RB/08. White paint from the repainted 'cabbage' flower at the treble end of the wrestplank. The paint fluoresces yellowish under U.V. This sample for record only. Neg 28.326.J/35 (Plate 4).

Sample RB/09. Grey and pink paint from the repainted tulip at the bass end of the wrestplank. For record only. Neg. 30.326.J.35 (Plate 4).

Sample RB/10 . Black casework paint from fall. Checked under U.V. that it contained no retouches. Neg. 33.227.J/35 (Plate 4).

Sample RB/11. Sample from upper face of gilded moulding from varnish through to wood surface. For sectioning.

Sample RB/12. From the vertical face of the interior of the casework. The paint layers separated very easily and had to be consolidated with BEVA before a satisfactory sample could be taken.

Sample RB/13. Paint from the bevelled edge of the soundboard surrounding the cast rose. For sectioning.

Sample RB/14. Red paint, varnish and gold leaf from the rose casting. For sectioning.

Sample RB/15. Dark green paint from one of the added groups on the wrestplank. For record only.

Sample RB/16. Black paint and gesso from centre of cheek piece. For sectioning. Neg. 17a.334.J/35 (Plate 5).

Sample RB/17. Section through painted and raised decoration on bentside. Neg. l9a.335.J/35 (Plate 5).
Note: It was only when this section was examined again later on under better lighting conditions, that we observed the rather granular greyish black coat which had been applied next to the gesso. Possibly this is a very lean foundation coat. The lacquer coats appear to become more translucent towards the surface. The occurrence of the very thin vermilion layer beneath the bronze powder is also interesting. It may well have been applied to enhance the colour of the bronze.

Sample RB/18. Two swabs containing green repaint from the leaves of the chrysanthemum group. For record only.

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS
List of 5x4 colour transparencies taken of the 1764/83 Goermans/Taskin.

Contents | Home Page | List of Instruments