upright “dog kennel” piano

Classification: 3 Chordophones / 31 Simple chordophones or zithers / 314 Board zithers / 314.1 True board zithers / 314.1-4-8 True board zithers sounded by hammers or beaters, with keyboard

Piano maker: Heinrich Roloff

Date: ca. 1840

Village / Town: Neubrandenburg

Country: Prussia / present-day Germany

Owner: Andrzej Szwalbe Collection, Ostromecko Palace near Bydgoszcz. 1979, bought from Zofia Nowak, Gliwice

Inventory number: PN-VI-60-105

Description: rosewood veneered. Casing in the lyre shape with “dog kennel” opening for pedals. Obliquely-, single-, double-strung, a metal rest pin block. English repetition action with underdampers

Inscriptions: on the keyboard cover inlaid in brass: H. ROLOFF / NEUBRANDENBURG; on the hitch pin block: 1167; one the soundboard pencilled: Gestimt ..../ am 26 April 1923 /.....  / Emanuel Fleischer / Hän…; on the casings back part of the railway order: ... Preussische Statseisenbahnen / Von Tworog [Tworóg, a village in Tarnogórskie region, Silesia] / am 12.10.04 / nach Rosdzin [Roździeń, now part of the city of Katowice]

Measurements: height 1200, width 1630, depth 335 (630) mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: C₁-g⁴ – 6½ octaves, two  pedals – piano and dampers

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: B. Vogel, Kolekcja zabytkowych fortepianów Filharmonii Pomorskiej, (Bydgoszcz, ¹1980, ²1987), p. 106; H. Henkel, Lexikon deutscher Klavierbauer, (Frankfurt/Main, 2000), pp. 515-16

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