When it comes to square grands, Chickering wins the prettiest plate award, hands down.

quote:

Originally posted by Zorba:
...I like the bolt-on brace in the treble...

I don't think it's actually "bolt-on", like S&S uses in their grands between the tenor and treble, but rather cast as one, with a fairly common flange for a "nose bolt".

Interesting that this Chickering square uses the same sort of dampers as that square a few pages back that was the subject of an identification problem at PW, rather than the more common levered type.

Anybody ever identify that piano?

quote:

Originally posted by Frycek:
Anybody ever identify that piano?

I don't think so. It could be nearly anything. Can't rule it out for *any* particular make based on something like the plate as many companies built plates in styles from very simple to very elaborately decorated, all at the same time. I wouldn't even hazard a guess as it'd be a true shot in the dark.

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:


Square Piano, 1850
Maker: Chickering, Boston

SI photographs by Robert C. Lautman


Americans preferred square pianos in their homes until the 1870s when uprights came into fashion in the US. This instrument is similar to those used to accompany Jenny Lind at her concerts.

Are you talking about identifying this one?

No, a square that had its pic on the Piano Forum at PW for awhile. According to Rick nobody every id'd it.

Oh yeah, that one. As far as I know, that's right, nobody ID'd it. I hijacked the end of tat thread talking about the S&S.

quote:

Originally posted by ChickGrand:
I don't think it's actually "bolt-on", like S&S uses in their grands between the tenor and treble, but rather cast as one, with a fairly common flange for a "nose bolt".

Yea, that makes sense once I took a second look!

Wilhelm Biese Upright Pianoforte Berlin c1866: extremely rare, floral painted central glass panel gold-plated brass & porcelain sconces,
overdamper action meticulously cleaned and restored but all parts including ivories and felts original

quote:

Originally posted by OperaTenor:

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:

Square Piano, 1850
Maker: Chickering, Boston

SI photographs by Robert C. Lautman


Americans preferred square pianos in their homes until the 1870s when uprights came into fashion in the US. This instrument is similar to those used to accompany Jenny Lind at her concerts.

Are you talking about identifying this one?

No. This one from our page 88:



Note the same type of dampers that you thought might be missing pieces when we were discussing it over at PW, but which are actually more like conventional grand dampers than the more common levered type that we have on Joe's Mathushek.

Also note that the unknown piano is "overstrung" with bass strings at a level above the tenor and treble. The Chickering is not. Which indicates the Chickering is a very early Chickering square, as Chickering patented the method of overstringing squares and implemented it relatively early.

And then piano "X" doesn't have a full plate, which makes it all the more baffling.

Also, weren't the flowery casting and the spoked wheel embellishments Chickering always used in their square grands?

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:

Wilhelm Biese Upright Pianoforte Berlin c1866: extremely rare, floral painted central glass panel gold-plated brass & porcelain sconces,
overdamper action meticulously cleaned and restored but all parts including ivories and felts original

WOW! Pretty!

quote:

Originally posted by OperaTenor:
...Also, weren't the flowery casting and the spoked wheel embellishments Chickering always used in their square grands?

Nope. (Though that particular plate is quite common.)

And if you look at the concert grands, their plate designs vary just as much from very, very simple, to ostentatiously ornate, all from the same time periods. Their entire production seems to be all over the map, with new designs built alongside old designs for upwards of decades and furniture styles and plate styles also all over the map, with very early examples of what we call "modern" among their grands, even while the ornate rococco beasts emerged from the factory even 20 years later. Even cross-stringing versus "flat-strung" is all over the map, with simultaneous or seemingly out-of-sequence production of both. Even action designs seem to be no good landmark for them with the older Brown-style appearing even after the company had long-ago built models with the more conventional Erard-derived model.

The only way I can account for such odd production habits is that many of the designers worked there well into old age. Doubtless many of them were partial to some of the "old ways" while others were experimenting with new methods. I would guess working there was like being a kid in a workshop, with freedom to do pretty much anything, as long as the result was a good quality piano, with many accepted methods of getting there. I don't see the kind of top-down controlled consistency one sees evident in other companies' production evolution.

I recently saw a concert grand I'd have sworn had to be one of their very last, guessed by me as about 1932, because it was of incredibly modern lines inside and out, with the most elegantly simple-but-open plate forms. It could easily have stood beside a new Bluthner. But it turned out to be from 1870 and 25 years older than models one might mistake for Civil War era production.

One particular Chickering collector I've become superficially acquainted with collects them specifically because of the variety of their plate production. I'm beginning to believe many of them may have even been one-offs.

If I were guessing about The Unknown Square, though, I would say it's not Chickering. I've never seen a single example of the hand-painted plate. I'd think it more likely Decker Bros., as they frequently did the decoratively-painted plates, both in squares and grands.

It seemed like it was time to see a more modern entry...

This one has a rosy tone...