Square Piano: Museum Object and Cultural History
Square Piano: date made: ca 1768 - 1775. Object Name: piano. Physical Description: lead (hammers material).
The object in the museum catalogue
This square piano has an unknown maker, but was made in Germany around 1770. It has a very unusual instrument with a unique hammer design and iron rods as jacks and hammer shanks. The absence of dampers (there is no indication there ever were any) suggests that the piano should be identified as a “pantalon.” This piano has a compass of C-f3, simple jack action, no dampers, leather balls on iron hooks at the end of hammer shanks, double-strings, with tuning pins on right, 1 hand stop: lute stop that is brought down to strings, wood frame, and a brown painted conifer case.
Materials, dates and provenance
- date made: ca 1768 - 1775
- Object Name: piano
- Physical Description: lead (hammers material)
- place made: Germany
- ID Number: MI.303538
- accession number: 62559
- catalog number: 303538
- Credit Line: Gift of Hugo Worch
- 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.
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