Description

Art Cased Lipp Piano

A restored, 1913, Lipp grand piano with an intricately inlaid, walnut cabinet. Piano casework features inlaid Neoclassical elements. The music desk features a central design of kneeling winged figures lifting a bowl filled with scrolling hibiscus flowers and foliage. The rounded piano cheek inlaid with winged cherubs, hibiscus flowers and tendrils. The gate piano legs are inlaid with wing motifs. The piano lid is inlaid with an arabesque design of hibiscus flowers, tendrils and acanthus leaves. Two half figures flank the lid lifting the tendrils aloft. At the piano tail, an Eden inspired circular motif features a nude male and female figure with a serpent in a tree. Above the piano fall, tendrils of hibiscus stems and flowers intertwine and flying cherubs hold the flowers aloft.

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism was a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. European Neoclassicism in the visual arts began c. 1760 in opposition to the then-dominant Rococo style. Rococo architecture emphasizes grace, ornamentation and asymmetry; Neoclassical architecture is based on the principles of simplicity and symmetry, which were seen as virtues of the arts of Rome and Ancient Greece, and were more immediately drawn from 16th-century Renaissance Classicism. Decorative techniques employed in the style included flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low frieze-like relief or painted in monotones en camaïeu ("like cameos"), isolated medallions or vases or busts or bucrania or other motifs, suspended on swags of laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques against backgrounds, perhaps, of "Pompeiian red" or pale tints, or stone colors

Lipp

Richard Lipp & Sohn was established in 1831 in Stuttgart, Germany.