Rectangular Octave Virginal ca. 1600 German The small virginal was for a ladys parlor, serving both as sewing box and as instrument for casual music making and to accompany singing. The ebony, casketlike case is in the style of Samuel Biedermann the Elder, probably made in Augsburg about 1600, and is decorated with engravings by Hans Sebald Beham and the elder Crispijn van de Passe. A delicate parchment rosette adorns the sound hole. Two shallow drawers, perhaps for sewing equipment, fit into the top of the lid. Sounding an octave above normal pitch, this virginal was not intended for serious music-making, but the three octave keyboard compass of f-f” (omitting f-sharp and g-sharp in the low octave) approximately covers the range of womens and childrens voices. Such instruments, fashionable in the first half of the seventeenth century, were a specialty of Augsburg cabinet and instrument makers. The instrument, having neither makers name nor the Augsburg hallmark, was probably buil