grand piano

Classification: 3 Chordophones / 31 Simple chordophones or zithers / 314 Board zithers / 314.1 True board zithers / 314.1-4-8 True board zithers sounded by hammers or beaters, with keyboard

Piano maker: Fryderyk Buchholtz

Date: 1841

Village / Town: Warsaw

Country: Congress Kingdom of Poland / present-day Poland

Owner: Andrzej Szwalbe Collection, Ostromecko Palace near Bydgoszcz. Bought in 1985 from Kazimierz Rogalski from Wyszków

Inventory number: MOK-VII-FZ-014, formerly PN-VI-60-146

Description: mahogany pyramid veneered. Straight-, single-, double-, triple-strung; composite frame with three metal stress bars and a capo tasto bar for the upper half of stringing. Viennese action with rack dampers. The casing shortened by ca. 800 mm by cutting the tail. Additions: metal bass rest pin block, bass and treble cross bars, capo tasto bar for the lower half of the stringing. Bass strings replaced with heavier ones. Music desk, legs and pedal lyre missing

Inscriptions: On the nameboard, a printed oval paper label in an ormolu frame, under glass: Fryderyk Buchholtz / w WARSZAWIE; penciled on its back: Sz: Luboradzki / N^o 48 Rok 1841; identical text penciled in the recess for namelabel; penciled on the back of the front slat: Czyszczony / i strojony 6.5.51 r. / St. Słomiński [Słonimski, Słomczyński, Słowiński?] str. Forte. / [other illegible inscriptions]

Measurements: height 335, width 1300, depth 1600 mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: C₁-g⁴ – 6½ octaves, two pedals – una corda and dampers

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: B. Vogel, Fortepian polski. Budownictwo fortepianów na ziemiach polskich od poł. XVIII w. do II wojny światowej, (Warszawa 1995), pp. 204-205; B. Vogel, Polskie fortepiany XIX-XX w. Kolekcja Muzeum Historii Przemysłu w Opatówku, (Opatówek 1994)

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