Upright piano
Maker
John Broadwood & Sons
Maker
Broadwood
Date1842 ca.
Place MadeLondon, England, Europe
ModelCottage upright
Serial No.none
SignedEngraved in tile on fallboard: John Broadwood & Sons, / Manufacturers to Her Majesty, / Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square, / LondonMarkingsnone
DescriptionCompass: FF-f4 (6 octaves)
Two pedals: left: una corda; right: damper
Construction:
The case is veneered in Spanish mahogany
Empire column legs
The front panel has a vertical molding on both sides in the shape of Empire column legs, also decorated with brasswork grill, backed with pleated silk, which matches the color of the veneer.
The top portion of the lower panel is decorated in the same way.
The fallboard contains an inlaid tile with the engraved signature.
The lid has a molding along the edge and a brass gallery on top.
There are two visible braces between the bottom of the case and the wrestplank.
The wrestplank is veneered in mahogany and is reinforced with seven horizontal screws.
The rectangular tuning pins are pierced and are arranged in couplets in a straight line.
There are two bridges; they are butted together between f-sharp and g (the bass bridge is nearly horizontal).
The bridges are square, with chamfered edges, and are double pinned throughout.
The diagonal one-piece nut (slightly higher in the bass) meets both sides of the case.Horizontal soundboard grain.
Action:
Upright sticker action, stickers and hammer butts are linked.
The jacks in this action are similar to the jacks in Broadwood's double action for square pianos ca. 1828 (NMM 1386). In this case the jack contacts a sticker instead of an intermediate lever. The jack screw is the only adjustable part.
The hammer shanks are round and are made of mahogany.
The molding of the bass and mid-range hammers end in a bulb, covered with two layers of hard leather and one layer of thick suede; they are slightly graduated.
The treble hammer modlings taper like modern hammer modlings (on a smaller scale), and are covered with one layer of leather and one layer of thick suede.
The modlings of all the hammers are 41 mm long.
The leather of the bass hammer is 10 mm thick, extreme treble hammers about 2 mm thick.
The hammers are pinned together with one long center pin.
The back of the hammer flanges are leather hinged to the stickers, the stickers are glued to the top of the sticker levers, and the sticker levers are leather hinged to the action frame, forming a "linked" action.
There is a metal brace screwed to the bottom of the hammer flange rail, and a V-shaped metal brace from the hammer flange rail to the sticker lever rail.
The hammers return to their original position by the weight of the stickers; there are no bridle tapes or hammer return springs.
Dampers:
Damper compass FF-c2.
The dampers consist of one strip of felt and two strips of cloth glued to a mahogany damper lever, which is leather hinged to the damper rail.
There are modlings cut in the levers whcih take the place of damper blocks.
The upper portion of the damper material has been cut off from c-sharp1 through c2.
It is a rather inefficient design sicne the dampers' return is accomplished soley through the wieght of the stickers, without the assistance of a spring mechanism , although the damper lift can be adjusted by moving the damper lever and washers up or down the damper wire.
The damper lift from the pedal is interesting; the pedal simply pushes the entire action frame away from the strings, lifting the dampers off the strings, but also increasing the hammer-blow distance.
Two metal springs mounted to the wrestplank return the action frame to the original position.
Keyboard:
Naturals veneered with ivory, fronts of boxwood with a straight-line molding.
Ebony sharps.
The key levers have two or three small round weights at the back and are guided by front rail pins.
Stringing and scaling:
Double strung.
Strings not original.
Rodger Kelly, 1991
DimensionsLength: 1143 mm (3'9")
Width: 664 mm (2' 2-1/8")
Height: 1219 mm (4')
Keyboard:
Three-octave measure: 490 mm
Length of heads: 44 mm
Width of heads: 22 mm
String lengths:
FF 973 mm
C 913 mm
c 866 mm
c1 578 mm
c2 289 mm
c3 147 mm
c4 76 mm
f4 68 mm
ProvenanceMorley Galleries, London
Published ReferencesPeter Gammond, Musical Instruments in Color (New York: Macmillan, 1975), plate 44.
"Early Instruments Heard," Shrine to Music Museum Newsletter, Vol. VI, No. 2 (April 1979), p. 2.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 19.
Rodger S. Kelly, A Catalog of European Pianos in The Shrine to Music Museum, M.M. Thesis (University of South Dakota: 1991), pp. 131-136.
Darcy Kuronen, "Keyboard Instruments at The Shrine to Music Museum," Early Keyboard Studies Newsletter, Vol. VI, No. 1 (October 1991), p. 10.
Credit LineBoard of Trustees, 1978
Object number02367
On View
On view
