I've just acquired an old Camac recorder which purports to be a reproduction of Praetorius's design of 1620 (looks like the picture but has a much longer windway). But it's made of ebony, and I wondered if Praetorius could have used that. Ebony is a tropical wood - was there an established timber trade to the various regions where ebony species grow at the beginning of the seventeenth century? And if so, did musical instrument makers get their hands on it?
I don't recall seeing pictures of musicians with black flutes from before about 1700. Those in Renaissance paintings are all the colour of maple or boxwood, or brown-stained.
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