Description

Original Pleyel

An 1893, Pleyel upright piano with a satinwood case. brass candlesicks and fluted, column legs. Entire cabinet features intricate, Neoclassical style inlay. The front panels feature a symmetrical design of scrolling acanthus, flowers, anthemions and foliage in a variety of woods. Cabinet is accented with boxwood stringing and a contrasting darker wood. The brass candlesicks feature a classical meander adorned with foliage, vases and swags. The brass handles also feature foliar ornament. The piano cheeks are square with contrasting stringing and moulding accents. The fluted, columnar leg design is accented with contrasting woods. The leg pediment features step cut square cabochons. Piano has an eighty-five note keyboard and two pedals.

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism was a Western cultural movement that began in opposition to the then-dominant Rococo style. Decorative techniques included flatter, lighter motifs, sculpted in low frieze-like relief. Decoration included medallions or vases, busts or bucrania, suspended on swags of laurel or ribbon, with slender arabesques against backgrounds.

Pleyel et Cie.

Pleyel et Cie. is a French piano manufacturing firm founded by the composer Ignace Pleyel in 1807. The firm provided pianos to Frédéric Chopin who considered Pleyel pianos to be of the finest quality. Pleyel et Cie. also operated a concert hall, the Salle Pleyel, where Chopin performed his first – and last – Paris concerts. Pleyel's major contribution to piano development was the first use of a metal frame in a piano. Pleyel pianos were the choice of composers such as Chopin, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, de Falla and Stravinsky.