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: Johann Adolf Mellenius

Date: ca. 1840

Village / Town: Riga

Country: Russian Empire / present-day Latvia

Owner: Museum of Industrial History, Opatówek, ul. Kościelna 1. Bought in 1980 from Waleria Bielawska from Chojnice; until 1978 it had belonged to a Ms Brzezińska from Wierzchocin

Inventory number: MHP 7/I

Description: walnut and mahogany veneered, keys’ fronts profiled. Straight-, single-, double strung with a back hitch pin block. Composite frame with two stress bars (the bass one is tubular); English single repetition action with overdampers

Inscriptions: J. A. Mellenius inlaid in brass on the nameboard

Measurements: height 335 (920), width 1885, depth 830 mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: C₁-g⁴ – 6⅔ octaves, one pedal – dampers

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: B. Vogel, Polskie fortepiany XIX-XX w. Kolekcja Muzeum Historii Przemysłu  w Opatówku, Opatówek, 1994; M. Rudolph, Rigaer Theater- und Tonkünstler-Lexikon nebst Geschichte des Rigaer Theater und der Musikalischen Gesellschaft, Riga, 1890, p. 156

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