A virginal is a keyboard-activated plucked-string instrument like a harpsichord, but it is made with the strings running transverse to the keys, leading to more compact forms. A muselar virginal is rectangular and has its keyboard placed right-of-center. This particular instrument was made by Joannes Ruckers, the second in a family of influential harpsichord makers in Antwerp from the late 16th century to the very beginning of the 18th century. Ruckers instruments were prized well after their workshops fell silent, and their instruments were continually reworked over the decades and centuries. This instrument is no exception, having had its range extended in the 18th-century and, importantly, an overall restoration conducted in the beginning of the 20th century. That work was undertaken right here in Boston, just a few miles away from the MFA at the Chickering Piano Company. There, English musician and instrument maker Arnold Dolmetsch was hired to make historically accurate old instruments. Dolmetsch was a pivotal figure in the 20th-century revival of early European music making, and as inscribed inside the case of this virginal, Dolmetsch undertook its restoration in the year 1906.

---