C. H. Dickinson Music Store Sign

DateProbably 1890-1900

OriginAmerica, Connecticut, Meriden or Wallingford

MediumEastern white pine, oil paint, gilding, sand, and iron

DimensionsOverall: 54 x 28 x 1in. (137.2 x 71.1 x 2.5cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1979.707.1

DescriptionAn elaborately lettered signboard with an image of a cornet at the top. The signboard is composed of two vertical boards having beveled edges and joined by two horizontal battens screwed to the back. The letters are gilded and freehand painted, and the background is smalted.

Artist unidentified.
Label TextBy the mid-1880s, the sign painter's art was greatly influenced by the broad spectrum of display letters used by printers. C. H. Dickinson's music store sign incorporates four different type faces and several decorative flourishes, some of the latter being stylized versions of base and treble clefs. The word "organs" expands in size from left to right, mimicking the musical score directive for increasing volume.

The beneficial effects of music were much touted in the second half of the nineteenth century, and by the 1860s, pianos and parlor organs were common fixtures in middle-class American homes. The following excerpt from a pseudo-scientific essay of 1872 summarizes a pervasive period attitude: "Let no one say that the moral effects of music are small or insignificant. That domestic and long-suffering instrument, the cottage piano, has probably done more to sweeten existence, and bring peace and happiness to families in general, and to young women in particular, than all the homilies on the domestic virtues ever yet penned."[Note 1].

Newspaper ads for C H Dickinson (1850-1938) survive documenting music stores in Meriden and Wallingford, Connecticut. It remains unknown when the company was founded, but Dickinson was in Williamsville, Vermont, by 1918, where he was buried.

Inscribed"C. H. DICKINSON./PIANOS/ORGANS/SHEET/MUSIC/STRINGS ETC" is painted and gilded on the obverse.
ProvenanceFound in Bennington, Vt.; Diamant Gallery, New York, NY; Pottinger-Walters Antiques, Goshen, Ind.