Cylinder Music Box: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This music box was made by an undetermined maker in St. Croix, Switzerland, around 1880-1890. It is a cylinder music box, serial #1531, with 8 tunes. This music box has a single-piece comb with 43 teeth. The music box is activated with a crank wound spring. The tunes list for this music box is as follows

Wang Baby, Baby Martha Red Hussar Boccacio The Poor Jonathan Chimes of Normandy Faust up to date Erminie

The Philadelphia music box manufacturer and dealer, Henry Grutsch & Sons imported the mechanisms from Switzerland and made the music box cases in their factory. The firm also repaired music boxes and sold other makes of music boxes.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1880-1890
• Object Name: music box
• Physical Description: wood (overall material)
• Physical Description: material (overall material)
• Physical Description: glass (overall material)
• Physical Description: paper (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 5 1/4 in x 14 3/4 in x 7 3/4 in; 13.335 cm x 37.465 cm x 19.685 cm
• place made: Switzerland
• ID Number: 1982.0011.01
• accession number: 1982.0011
• catalog number: 1982.0011.01
• Credit Line: Bequest of Elizabeth L. Wilkinson (through: Ripley W. Clarkson).
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.