There is a nice clavichord by Christoph Friedrich Schmahl (Lot 43); but the ‘Italian clavichord’ (Lot 37) is surely a Franciolini fake. A drawing of something very similar appears in F.'s catalogue 3A (probably issued c. 1895), though the lid painting is different.
Indeed, Peter, Lot 37 is a very curious instrument: almost unique in the keyboard position; if antique, I find it hard to believe that it begun its life as a clavichord at all. Franciolini did these strange things, which look like fakes (either partial or total) from very far away: still remember my encounter with the “Italian harpsichord” in Blois (I believe it is no longer there).
Edit: I took this picture back in 2005. You could see the fake 10 meters away … It actually looks like a hodge-podge of different styles, but I believe is it a full fake.
I wonder why chateaux display such obvious forgeries. It diminishes their curatorial credibility. Worse, it misleads visitors who are not specialists into thinking this is what a harpsichord looked like. I think there’s a case for putting this monstrosity in the cellar. People scream blue murder when fakes are found hanging in major galleries. Perhaps the general public does not care much about harpsichords.
The chateaux on the Loire, beautiful and magnificent as they are, are all but authentic. They are full of furniture, floorings, objects, etc., recreated in the XXth century. Some are just like the originals, some are just more or less similar to what it could have been. Usually the walls are original but in one case (sorry I don’t remember where) they had made a new entrance from an internal courtyard, in order to have separate entrance/exit. They made a new stairs with stones similar to the original. New addings are not signaled so you have to read the books or the printed guides to know.
Thus, a Franciolini is perfectly in style.
However, this is not to diminish the importance and beauty of the chateaux. On the contrary, they are of extreme beauty. Their architecture and design are so refined, and their gardens are a marvel. I wish I could return there soon.
Dear Dennis, while you are correct that I cannot find any authoritative inspection of the Blois harpsichord online, I DO find quite a few references (and certainly NOT to my own post of years ago here) to this harpsichord that consider it a fake. A webpage declares it as an original Baffo, strongly reworked by Franciolini towards the end of the 19th century.
I looked at it in full detail and I remember that everything inside looked wrong. The admixture of styles strongly looked (as suggested by Domenico) like actually the work of a single maker using disparaged elements, and acting in Victorian times. It certainly did not look at all like the work of successive makers in the harpsichord era.
However, mine was not an expert full examination. It is interesting, however, that this harpsichord has been there for a long time, but no Boalch edition features it.
Le 29/01/2023 18:39, Claudio Di Veroli via The Jackrail écrit :
Dear Dennis, while you are correct that I cannot find any authoritative inspection of the Blois harpsichord online, I DO find quite a few references (and certainly NOT to my own post of years ago here) to this harpsichord that consider it a fake. A webpage declares it as an original Baffo, strongly reworked by Franciolini towards the end of the 19th century.
I looked at it in full detail and I remember that everything inside looked wrong. The admixture of styles strongly looked (as suggested by Domenico) like actually the work of a single maker using disparaged elements, and acting in Victorian times. It certainly did not look at all like the work of successive makers in the harpsichord era.
However, mine was not an expert full examination. It is interesting, however, that this harpsichord has been there for a long time, but no Boalch edition features it.
But I’m not saying it’s not a fake. I’m saying that this is not obvious from the photo you posted, and that the arguments you give for
this obviousness are not at all convincing: mismatched stand (countless
authentic examples), diagonal cheeks (like the Paris Faby, among
others), bentside. Now you’re telling me you looked inside. But please
tell me what on the photo makes you and Andrew say this is obviously a
fake (“the Francilolini fake stands out a mile”).
With pleasure, Dennis.
Let me tell you what makes me to say it is a fake.
Nothing you do not know, I guess:
Years of playing at length on true antiques in the Fenton House London.
Years of playing at length on true antiques in the Paris COnservatoire, now Musée de la Musique.
Having visited (and often played) both authentic harpsichords and recognised mostly-Franciolini-messed-with (when not outright fakes) instruments in more than a dozen other important European collections (which normally do not allow visitors to play or examine closely instruments).
All the above I started 53 years ago, when I was 23 (I am 76 now).
This experience of a lifetime gives me a “feeling”, hopefully also (unless I was utterly stupid, which is of course a distinctive possibility!) an authoritative one at that.
But it is no substitute for a specialist investigation, of course.
Back to the Blois Baffo, when the outer decoration looks like a Victorian fake, when the internal things all look out of proportion, it remains the possibilty that Franciolini took an old undecorated inner-instrument Baffo, reduced case and soundboard down to the present size, repinned, restrung and decorated it.
Only the walls inner material and the soundboard would be original.
Yet I cannot find any evidence that this was a Baffo at all.
I went to my good ol’ Boalch 2, where I pencilled down, after my visit to BLois, that the signature reads indeed MDLXXII (1572), and that it was reported as “Largely reworked and redecorated by Franciolini, 1880”. Well, now we have a date.
Well, from the photo it isn’t so obvious, you are right. But the photo can make at least some suspects arise. The cheeks may well not be unique, but they are very uncommon. The Faby has similar cheeks, ok, but it’s a true inner-outer, and the inner cheeks are of the usual type. While the Blois is a false inner outer. The Faby proportions are similarly uncommon (and somewhat gross).
I can’t remember exactly what led me to conclude it was a fake (I didn’t know yet it is a recognized Franciolini), but it was when I looked inside. Something with the bridge or the bridge-bentside distance, and other details. I was under the impression that the harpsichord couldn’t possibly have been playing, never in its story.
The impression in real life was much bolder than in photo.
Maybe it’s just not a very good instrument. Doesn’t really look all that great to me. And given the scarcity of excellent harpsichords, perhaps there are just not many 100,000 euro ones left to buy.
Meanwhile the 1731 Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ ‘Baltic’ violin sold a few days ago for $9.44 million at auction. The third highest auction sale price ever achieved for a musical instrument. Not relevant to harpsichords, but to me an indication the market can hardly be said to be down.
I don’t like the look of the Serafini. Indeed, the maker is not mentioned in any Boalch edition. In the video I see a thoroughly modern stand and a modern external and internal decoration, and a suspiciously uniform-colour soundboard. According to the auction details, the action is modern, there is an antique signature on the soundboard, a jack with a date and a few antique parts. Difficult to say, without examining the instrument, which parts of it are really original.
Searching for more info, I looked at one of the pictures in the auction website: According to Prof. Dr. R. Ewerhart, the instrument was built by Mario Serafini 1699 in Rome as a
Looking at the registers and wrestplank, It appears that the instrument once had a third rank of jacks, most likely 4’ (never heard of three 8’ ranks on an Italian antique). Yet it is apparent that the soundboard never had a 4’ bridge, and further the wood has the grain at a strange angle: it really looks modern . . .
Ah, forgot the chromatic 4-octave keyboard, but then many antiques have modern-converted ones
of course.
Another check needed is the “smell”. For me, it all “smells” to Franciolini …
Yes, it is a suspect instrument indeed. Maybe the third rank of jacks could be something like peau de bouffle or other device? I mean plucking one of the two 8’ strings, as there is no sign of a 4’ on the soundboard or on the wrestplank.
