Muzio Clementi   in London   ca.1805

 

 

Born in Rome on 24 January 1752, died in England Westminster Abbey on 10 March 1832)

He was a famous composer in his time and the story of his competition with Mozart for

the emperor is very well known. He had the firm of fortepiano making which belonged  

to Longmann & Brodering before their ecconomical problems about 1800 that Clementi took

the firm in London and ran the business till his dead. Then it was taken by Collard & 

Collard for the next decades.

 

In England painting on the wood was only in this amazingly

beautiful style and extremely rare. Most English pianos focus

only on the natural beauty of the wood but rarely they also

imitated paintings like it was very common in Italy but very

much in their own way. 

This piano is painted from all sides, left and right and even

back. So it shows that already in those years, square pianos

were becoming concert (internal concerts in bigger rooms

of patrons for instance, of course no big hall yet!) so their

backside was also veneered or painted and decorated whereas

the older pianos before had almost no veneer on the backside

or the grands had were also left simple in their left side.

 

As usual, this English piano also has the typical double

English action, 5 and half octaves (FF-c'''') and a pedal for

dampers lift.