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: John Broadwood & Sons

Date: 1843

Village / Town: London

Country: United Kingdom

Owner: Fryderyk Chopin Institute, originally ordered by Georges Wildes from Manchester. F. Chopin played a similar grand (serial no. 17047, now in Cobbe’s Collection in Great Britain) during his trip to England in 1848. According to factory archives it was repaired twice in 1855 (among others loose wrest pins). Bought in 2014

Description: rosewood veneered, pie-crust model. Straight-, double-, triple-strung, composite frame with six metal stress bars, English grand repetition action with overdampers

Inscriptions: on the keyboard cover a square lime plate decorated with arabesques: Patent / Repetition Grand Pianoforte. / John Broadwood & Sons / Manufacturers to Her Majesty / 33. Great Pulteney Street Golden Square / London; inside the keyboard table a paper tablet in ink: 16000 / Isaac; on the hammers’ frame in ink: Murray [?]; and almost illegibly by hand: Wildes; in many places pressed: 16000; on the left side of the pin block in ink: R N 16000

Measurements: height 355 (940), width 1310, depth 2440 mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: C₁-f⁴ – 6½ octaves, two pedals – una corda and dampers

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: D. Pawlak, ‘Broadwood John’, Encyklopedia muzyczna PWM, vol. 1, ed. E. Dziębowska (Kraków, 1979), p. 423;  A.W.J.G. Ord-Hume, ‘John Broadwood & Sons’, Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments, vol. 1 The Piano, ed. R. Palmieri (New York, 1994), pp. 55-7

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