A portable piano which could be played while carried, in the manner of a guitar, or while set on a table or stand, or while resting in the performer’s lap (see illustration). First described in 1795 by its inventor, Karl Leopold Röllig, it has a small soundbox containing a three- to four-octave keyboard that activates a Viennese action; the strings run transversely across the soundbox from a harp-shaped open frame at the performer's left to tuning-pins set at the right. The style of the stringing was intended to imitate the ancient lyre, an attribute of Orpheus.
K.L. Röllig: Orphica: ein musikalisches Instrument (Vienna, 1795)
V. Luithlen and K. Wegerer: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Katalog der Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente, i: Saitenklaviere (Vienna, 1966/R), 80–2
J. Koster: Keyboard Musical Instruments in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 1994), 224–7
EDWIN M. RIPIN/JOHN KOSTER