grand 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: Teodor Betting

Date: ca. 1905

Village / Town: Kalisz

Country: Congress Kingdom of Poland / present-day Poland

Owner: Museum of Industrial History, Opatówek, ul. Kościelna 1. Gifted in 2006 by Maria Iwona Wiktorczyk from Warsaw. Before World War II it had belonged to her mother, Helena Bonikowska, a singer, pupil of Ada Sari

Inventory number: MHP 70/I

Description: black polished. Cross-, single-, double-, triple-strung; full frame casted together with a capotasto bar for all strings and hitch pin block armour. English double repetition action with overdampers

Inscriptions: Theodor Betting on the keyboard cover inlaid in brass and mother-of-pearl; on the frame a logo with Apollo reads T. BETTING / TRADE MARK; T. BETTING in another place on the frame; 2550 penciled on the inside of front slat

Measurements: height 330 (990), width 1560, depth 1830 mm

Materials: wood, metal, ivory

Keyboard compass, stops: A₂-a⁴ – 7 octaves, two pedals – una corda and dampers

Catalog card by: Benjamin Vogel

Bibliography: B. Vogel, Fortepian polski. Budownictwo fortepianów na ziemiach polskich od poł. XVIII w. do II wojny światowej, (Warszawa, 1995), pp. 199-200; B. Vogel, Polskie fortepiany XIX-XX w. Kolekcja Muzeum Historii Przemysłu  w Opatówku, (Opatówek,1994); K. Rottermund, Budownictwo instrumentów muzycznych na terenie Wielkopolski w XIX i 1. połowie XX wieku, (Poznań, 2002), pp. 96-7

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