Annibale Carracci, 'Marsyas and Olympus', 1597-1600

These three panels were originally part of an early keyboard instrument, or possibly a pair of instruments, and show scenes of music-making and drinking. Silenus gathering Grapes and Young Satyr gathering Grapes are probably from the inside of the lid, and would only have been seen when the instrument was open. Marsyas and Olympus may have also belonged to the lid of the keyboard or to some part of the instrument’s case.

They were almost certainly painted by Annibale Carracci during the late 1590s, while he was working for the powerful Farnese family in Rome. The designs for some of the figures are based on antiquities in the Farnese collection. The instruments probably once belonged to Fulvio Orsini, classical scholar and owner of the famous Vatican Virgil, one of only three illustrated manuscripts to survive from the classical world. Orsini spent over 40 years in the service of the Farnese, combining the functions of librarian and curator, and living in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome.

On 21 January 1600, worried by his declining health, Orsini made his will along with a scrupulous inventory of his collection. Two fine musical instruments were listed in this, one of which he described as being commonly called a ‘Graviorganum’, the other a ‘vero Cymbalum’. The former is presumably a claviorganum, a harpsichord combined with an organ and fitted with strings as well as pipes. Hardly any of these instruments survive, but they were fairly widespread in the sixteenth century, and some early examples had curved lids. They were often brightly painted, sometimes with musical themes drawn from classical literature: the Theewes Claviorgan, dated 1579, has Orpheus playing to animals on the inside of the lid (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).

The long panel of Marsyas and Olympus might have been the keyboard lid of the claviorganum – technical examination has revealed three small hooks embedded in the bottom of the panel, which were probably inserted as some form of hinge – or possibly part of the case of the ‘vero Cymbalum’.

Orsini left both his instruments to one of his executors, Orazio Lancellotti. The first certain reference to Silenus gathering Grapes and Young Satyr gathering Grapes records them as part of an instrument in the Palazzo Lancellotti in Rome during the seventeenth century, so there is good reason to think that this was the instrument bequeathed to him by Orsini.