upright 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: Eck & Comp.

Date: ca. 1840

Village / Town: Cologne

Country: Prussia / present-day Germany

Owner: Andrzej Szwalbe Collection, Ostromecko Palace near Bydgoszcz. Bought in 1981 from Kinga Rusek from Limanowa

Inventory number: MOK-VII-FZ-048, formerly PN-VI-60-122

Description: walnut veneered. Obliquely-, single-, double-, triple-strung. English repetition action with underdampers

Inscriptions: on the keyboard cover, a square nameplate inlaid in brass reads Eck & Comp. / CÖLN; on the pin block: 502; on the left side of the upper door’s edge: 3181; elliptic stamp under the keyboard table features: W. Olbrich & Co. / Glatz and illegible numbers and words; initials EC woven in the upper door’s openwork

Measurements: height 1060, width 1470, depth 280 (530) mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: C₁-g⁴ – 6½ octaves, one pedal – dampers

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: B. Vogel, Kolekcja zabytkowych fortepianów Filharmonii Pomorskiej, (Bydgoszcz, ¹1980, ²1987) p. 100; H. Henkel, Lexikon deutsches Klavierbauer, (Frankfurt am Main, 2000) pp. 122-23; M. Nowak-Clinkscale, Makers of the Piano, vol. 2, 1820-1860, (Oxford, 1999) pp. 112-13

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