The compass of both instruments is four octaves, C to c’’’. Originally the lowest note was an apparent E, but tuned to C with what is known as a short octave. The compass was made chromatic to C in the historical period. This is a ‘double virginal” – known to contemporaries as ‘moeder en kind’ (Flemish for mother and child) – and is actually two separate virginals – one at normal 8’ pitch, and the much smaller instrument at octave (4’) pitch. The octave virginal is stored under the soundboard to the left end of the ‘mother’s keyboard. The cases of both virginals are of painted poplar. The outside of the larger instrument and its lid are painted in panels of two shades of brown; the inside of its lid features a handsome painting of the contest between Apollo and the satyr Marsyas (or Pan). More informal, smaller, paintings of a rustic village festival adorn both sides of the hinged flap that can be closed over the front of the cavity that houses the octave (‘child’) instrument. The nameboard of the ‘mother’ is a replacement painted a dark brown, but is flanked at either end of the keywell by original paintings of figures of higher status: a group of maskers and two minstrels. All the sides of the small instrument are decorated with paintings of children at play. Each virginal’s soundboard is pierced by a single hole filled with the characteristic Hans Ruckers cast metal rose featuring an angel with a harp flanked by the initials “H R”. Both instruments are single strung, and the keyboards are 19th-century replacements.

Hans Ruckers established a dynasty of Flemish harpsichord makers that influenced not only contemporary makers, but also those of later generations throughout much of northern Europe. Keyboard instruments made by the Ruckers family were highly prized throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and often adapted for later musical use.