Double Virginal by Grouwels

This is the only known instrument of Lodewijck Grouwels, a Protestant maker who left Catholic Antwerp in 1593 and moved to the Calvinist stronghold of Middelburg. The instrument is sometimes referred to as a “mother and child virginal,” as there is a main virginal (the mother) and a second smaller removable octave virginal (the child). The small keyboard is a replacement made by the famous harpsichord maker Arnold Dolmetsch in 1896 during a restoration of the entire instrument.