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Chest organ

Alternate name(s)
  • Pipe organ
Date1600-1650 ca.
Place MadeKraków, Poland, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedOn a square tin pipe: H % / Jacob / Humell / CDescriptionThis chest organ, probably made during the first half of the 17th century, may have been made in Kraków or southern Poland.

Four octaves, C-c3 (45 keys with short octave). Naturals made of boxwood, accidentals of darkened wood.

Two hand-operated gravity-fed bellows on top.

390 pipes (170 pipes are original). Pitch is about ¾ tone above A=440

Stop list:
Doppelter Zimbal 1/6'
Flöte Major 8'
Flöte Minor 4'
Oktave 2'
Doppelte Mixtur 1/2'
Prinzipal 1'
DimensionsLength: 81 cm
Width: 50 cm
Height: 87 cm
ProvenancePurchased in 1986 from Bernhard von Hünerbein, Cologne, Germany.
Published References"1986 Acquisitions at USD Music Museum," Newsletter of the American Musical Instrument Society 16, No. 1 (February 1987), p. 6.

Kuronen, Darcy. “Keyboard Instruments at The Shrine to Music Museum,” Early Keyboard Studies Newsletter October 1991, p. 10.

Larson, André P. The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 43.

Schindler, Jürgen-Peter. Die Nürnberger Stadtorgelmacher und ihre Instrument (Nürnberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1995), pp. 49, 60, 72, 84.

Koster, John. “Historical Organs in the Museum Context,” The Tracker 50, Nos. 3 & 4 (Summer/Fall 2006), p. 31.

Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1986
Object number04031
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