Square Piano by Pape J-H

Square piano. Compass FF-f4 (73 notes, 6 octaves). Naturals covered in ivory; sharps ebony. Action of the English grand-piano type, with checks. Probably four pedals (three survive and one more would complete their symmetry; four pedal rods also survive). The mahogany lid indicates that the front corners were rounded. Three folding music racks survive, originally on the lid flap for use with the main lid closed, on the nameboard for use with the main lid open, and at the front edge of the soundboard to the right of the keywell for another musician. Two turned legs in the form of plain columns with ball feet survive as does one decorative meatal collar; also the column to hold the pedals.

That various details of NMM 14651 (such as the three music racks and the extraordinarily large number of eight hinges between the main lid and the flap) correspond with a square piano by Jean-Henri Pape dated 1823, serial no. 516 (in the Musée de la Musique, Paris; inv. no. E. 662; see photos below), confirms that, despite the questionable inscription on the soundboard, the instrument was indeed made by Pape around the same time. The 1823 Pape (erroneously reported as 1817 in some sources, including Franz Josef Hirt, Stringed Keyboard Instruments 1440-1880 [Boston, 1968], p. 56) is inscribed on the same area of the soundboard and with nearly the same wording as NMM 14651 but with much more elegant script. Presumably the present inscription on NMM 14651 was copied from the original inscription when the soundboard was refinished or replaced. With its early date and low serial number, NMM 14651 is a very early example (possibly the earliest surviving) of Pape’s work.