BY F. A. KLEIN, BERLIN, SECOND QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

Details

A GERMAN GILT-METAL-MOUNTED ROSEWOOD VERTICAL GRAND PIANO**
BY F. A. KLEIN, BERLIN, SECOND QUARTER 19TH CENTURY
The superstructure formed as a lyre, backed with later green silk and mounted with an ormolu basket of flowers, the keyboard fitted with an enamel plaque with two pedals on splayed trestle supports and paw feet, inscribed No. 9 and with black pen inscription 5#02616, losses and cracking to veneer, not in working order
82 in. (208 cm.) high, 49 in. (124 cm.) wide, 24 in. (61 cm.) deep

Provenance

with McMillen, New York, 22 August 1944 ($656.50).

Special notice

Christie's is selling all lots in this sale as agent for an organization which holds a State of New York Exempt Organization certificate. Seller explicitly reserves all trademark and trade name rights and rights of privacy and publicity in the name and image of Doris Duke. No buyer of any property in this sale will acquire any right to use the Doris Duke name or image. Seller further explicitly reserves all copyright rights in designs or other copyrightable works included in the property offered for sale. No buyer of any property in the sale will acquire the rights to reproduce, distribute copies of, or prepare derivative works of such designs or copyrightable works.

Sale room notice

Please note the header of this lot should read:
A GERMAN GILT-METAL-MOUNTED ROSEWOOD VERTICAL GRAND PIANO**

Lot Essay

This piano closely resembles others produced in Berlin and Vienna in the first two decades of the 19th century. A particularly close piano, from the Berlin workshop of Johann Christian Schleip, of 1825, also has a dramatic lyre-form upright and nearly identical overall base and with similar restrained scrolling mounts (see A. Stiegel, Berliner Möbelkunst, Berlin, 2003, p. 216). Other variations to this upright form were popularized through the published engravings of the Viennese firm of Herrn Wachtl und Bleyer published in 1812.

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