Description

Original Bechstein

Arts and Crafts, 1899, Bechstein upright piano with a walnut case. Cabinet features sizeable, brass hinges on the fall and top lid with trefoil embellishments. Part of the cabinet design, the large sculptural candlesticks sit atop the square piano legs. The openwork music desk is in a vertical slatted design. The brass key escutcheon is in a clover leaf design. Bechstein manufacturers logo inscribed on a brass plaque on fall. Design by Walter Cave. Piano has an eighty-five note keyboard and two pedals. Piano has had previous resotration work. Action has new hammers, dampers and pins.

Walter Frederick Cave

Walter Frederick Cave (1863 - 1939) was an English architect, active in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who worked firstly in the Arts and Crafts style, and latterly in the Classical Revival. In addition to architecture, Cave worked as a landscape gardener, interior designer, furniture maker and cricketer

Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts decorative style was based on the following principles; handmade, simple forms with little ornamentation, beauty of natural materials, copper and pewter, stylised flowers, allegories from the Bible and literature, upside down hearts, Celtic motifs.

C. Bechstein

C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG (also known as Bechstein) is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein. Carl Bechstein set out to manufacture a piano able to withstand the great demands imposed on the instrument by the virtuosi of the time, such as Franz Liszt. In 1862, C. Bechstein was awarded gold medals at the London International Exhibition. By 1870, with endorsements from Franz Liszt and Hans von Bulow, Bechstein pianos had become a staple in many concert halls and private mansions. By January 1886 they were among the piano manufacturers holding a royal warrant as a supplier to the Queen. In 1885, Bechstein opened a branch in London, that eventually grew to become the largest showroom and dealership in Europe.