square piano

Classification: 3 Chordophones  /  31 Simple chordophones or zithers  /  314 Board zithers  /  314.1 True board zithers  /  314.12 With resonator  /  314.122 With resonator box (box zither)  /  314.122-4-8 True board zithers with resonator box (box zither) sounded by hammers or beaters, with keyboard

Piano maker: Friedrich Bernhard Voigt u. Sohn

Date: ca. 1840

Village / Town: Berlin

Country: Prussia / present-day Germany

Owner: Museum of Industrial History, Opatówek, ul. Kościelna 1. Bought from Boleslaw Bielawski from Warsaw in 1980. During the interwar time belonged to Helena Goldstein, daughter of hairdresser in Skawina, c. 1945-1978 to Ewa Kolstrung there

Inventory number: MHP 3/I

Description: rosewood veneered, case embellished with rectangular frames of light wood, and floral ornament at the name board. Octagonal legs, pedal lyre and frame music desk. Straight-single-double strung with a front hitch pin block. English single action with lever dampers and hammers skin covered. Pedal lyre missing

Inscriptions: on the nameboard a printed label embellished with floral ornament and royal arms in the middle, under glass in ormolu frame, reading: F. Voigt u. Sohn. / Königlicher = Hof = Instrumentenmacher / BERLIN.; at the case bottom in black paint: M2

Measurements: height 335 (900) mm, width 1715 mm, depth 770 mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: E₁-f ⁴ – 6⅛ octaves, one pedal – dampers

Catalog card by: Beniamin Vogel

Bibliography: Z. Szulc, Katalog instrumentów muzycznych, Muzeum Wielkopolskie (Poznań, 1949); M. Novak Clinkscale, Makers of the Piano 1700-1820, vol. I, (Oxford, 1993); H. Heyde, Musikinstrumentenbau in Preussen (Tutzing, 1994), p. 290; H. Henkel, Lexikon deutscher Klavierbauer (Frankfurt/M., 2000), pp. 673-74; Informator Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Skawiny: http://tps.skawina.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Informator-TPS-nr-26.compressed.pdf (accessed 17 June 2017)

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