A Material and Anti-Material History of the Ancien Régime Harpsichord: Enlightenment Economies of Artisanal Knowledge

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Flemish harpsichords by the Ruckers and Couchet families were exported widely across the globe. These instruments were so highly valued in France, that, beginning in the 1680s, French harpsichord makers began updating them for modern use. The process, described as ravalement, could involve rebuilding the keyboards and action, redecorating, and sometimes even enlarging the case. They also began copying and forging these instruments, creating an extremely lucrative luxury market: a Flemish ravalement could cost up to ten times as much as a new French-made harpsichord. The harpsichord in Ancien Régime Paris was thus not only a musical instrument and vehicle for artistic expression, but also a decorative objet d’art authored by numerous craftspeople in a vast collaboration sometimes spanning centuries.This dissertation positions the harpsichord as an actor within the polychromatic environment of Paris, investigating how it united communautés of professional musicians, artisans who mediated knowledge production in the arts and sciences, and the flourishing milieu of the salon. As I argue, the harpsichord, molded by generations of changing artistic and philosophical ideals, also came to shape these very ideals, actively transforming contemporary notions of history, communication, life, and human consciousness