Lot 140
ARTS & CRAFTS WALNUT GRAND PIANO
DESIGNED BY CHARLES ROBERT ASHBEE (1863-1942), CIRCA 1904
The Forbes Collection at Old Battersea House
Auction: 1 November 2011 at 11:00 GMT
Description
made by John Broadwood & Sons, London numbered 47850 and applied with patinated brass pierced strapwork hinges on square tapering supports
Dimensions
155cm (61in) wide, 102cm (40.2in) high, 228.5cm (90in) long
Footnote
Provenance: Edward George Henry Montagu, 8th Earl of Sandwich, Hinchingbrooke House, Huntingdon
With Haslam & Whiteway, London
Jed Johnson, designer and boyfriend of Andy Warhol
Alan Wanzenberg, New York architect
Forbes Collection
Literature: Crawford, Alan 'C.R. Ashbee: Designer & Romantic Socialist' Yale University Press 1985
Joy Billington, Forbes: The London Collection, The Illustrated London News, Spring, 1991, Vol. 279, No.7099, p. 41
Note: The Broadwood Piano Co records state that this piano was finished by 12th March 1904 and delivered to Hitchingbrooke on 29th March of the same year. Ashbee's deliberately unconventional style around this time particularly focussed on his designs for pianos. Both his wife and his mother were talented pianists and besides, 'artists and architects of advanced tastes had been interested in reforming the design of piano cases for some time'. Burne-Jones with W.A.S. Benson had produced a design in 1879 which replaced the deep curves and massive legs of the high Victorian era with a treatment closer to late 18th century harpsichords and these 'Reformed' or 'Artistic' forms provoked 'steady interest' from then onwards. Ashbee's first design was for his wife Janet in 1900 and was 'shocking' in its subversion of convention. As in the present example the cabinet work was carried out by Broadwood & Co. and the heavy cast hinges were made by the Guild of Handicrafts. The form was square and reflected the piano forms of the late 18th century but with hinged doors to the front. This example, produced four years later retains many of the features of this original design with the case enclosing the more usual grand piano frame. These 'specials', as they were known at Broadwoods, were made to commission and were bespoke for each client.
Examples of Broadwood pianos designed by Ashbee are in the collections of the Huntingdon Library, Pasadena, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum and Standen House, Surrrey.