Weber Upright Piano: Museum Object and Cultural History
Weber Upright Piano: date made: 1876. maker: Weber. decorator: Herter Brothers.
The object in the museum catalogue
Albert Weber became Steinway’s principal competitor in the 1870s, just as the Chickering company began to falter. Weber made few technical innovations. He simply made extremely fine pianos like this 1876 upright and sold them at fair prices. Beautifully decorated by Herter Brothers, furniture designers of New York, this instrument helped Weber challenge Steinway at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876. The piano is serial number 9957, and has a compass of AAA-c5, tape-check upright action (probably not original), felt hammers, single-, double-, and triple-strings, cross-strung, 2 pedals: “soft” and dampers, a double iron frame, and an ebonized case with inlaid designs and gilded banding.
Materials, dates and provenance
- date made: 1876
- maker: Weber
- decorator: Herter Brothers
- Object Name: piano
- Object Type: pianos
- Physical Description: iron (frame: material)
- Physical Description: felt (hammers: material)
- Physical Description: wood (case: material)
- Measurements: overall: 138.5 cm x 155.4 cm x 66.5 cm; 54 1/2 in x 61 3/16 in x 26 3/16 in
- Place Made: United States: New York, New York City
- ID Number: 1980.0360.01
- catalog number: 1980.0360.01
- accession number: 1980.0360
- 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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