TMS Project final images\1997-117\1997-117.mp3

Square piano

Dateca. 1791

Artist/Maker Jacob Ball

MediumMahogany: case, stand, hammer shanks, damper levers, end brackets, internal folding music desk, candle shelves, hammer-rail cap; Limewood: key levers; Beech: bridge; Spruce: soundboard; Sycamore or Maple: nameboard veneer; Plain light hardwood: molded key fronts; Softwoods: bottom, belly rail; Oak: upper stand horizontals; Ivory: natural key tops; Ebony: Sharp veneer; Leather: jack tops, hammer covers; Baleen: damper springs; Brass: jack wires, casters (probably replaced ), lid hinges; Iron: tuning pins ??=================== Mahogany case; linden key levers with ivory key tops and ebony toped stained wood sharps; sycamore or maple nameboard veneer; spruce soundboard; Scots pine baseboard; mahogany hammers, dampers, and end brackets.

DimensionsNet dimensions exclude lid, stand and projecting moldings. All dimensions in mm except where noted. Length: 1,597 mm (net 1,570 mm); Width: 556 mm (net 538 mm); Height: 868 mm (net 236 mm)

Credit LineGift of Nicholas and Shelley Schorsch

Object number1997-117

DescriptionCASE DECORATION: This has a lightly and irregularly figured solid mahogany case with an ogee cut into the bottom molding and a bead cut into the top rim inner edge.
KEYWELL: The keywell is veneered in sycamore (slight curl figure) with simple dark-light-dark string banding forming a continuous rectangle extending onto the keycheeks. The central inscription is penned directly on the sycamore, framed only in calligraphic flourishes.
LID: The lid is unusual in that the flap over the keyboard is wide, partly to accommodate the hinged candle shelves, and partly to allow use of the section over the front of the nameboard to serve as a music rack for a second instrumentalist. The flap had a hinged rack and was tethered in the angled position by a cord fixed to the inner rim of the case.
STAND AND PEDALS: The trestle stand probably had straight legs that were later modernized a bit with some tapering that cuts through the ogee molding of the
Marlborough legs. A music shelf rests on the horizontals of the stand, and may be part of the slightly later modernization. Both the tapering of the legs and the addition of the music shelf are consistent with the taste for the "French Frame stands" that were just starting to appear by the beginning of the 1790s but became universal a decade later.
INTERNAL NOTES: Unusual shelves for candles are hinged to either end of the nameboard and extend backward over the key levers when not in use. There is no evidence that the piano ever had a dustboard.
COMPASS: FF-f3
OCTAVES: 5
STOPS: Never any stops or pedals of any kind.
Inscribed"Jacobus Ball Londini Fecit Patent / Duke Street Grosvenor Square" in ink on nameboard
Markings• There is an unreadable pen marking on the top of the top key just behind the ivory cover. A large "N" probably indicates it was the serial number or a workman's number.
• Key levers are stamped with numbers.
Provenance• Owned at one time by Ian Pleeth, a dealer and restorer near London
• Transferred in late twentieth century (ca. 1980s) to Tim Hamilton, who brought the piano to America and who owned it during his restoration of it
• Tim Hamilton sold it to Nicholas and Shelley Schorsch
• Given to Colonial Williamsburg Foundation by Nicholas & Shelley Schorsch in 1997

Exhibition(s)