The Golden Grand Piano

 

The factory of Johan Gustaf Malmsjö (1815-1891) is one of our most important ones known for instruments of high quality and beauty of tone. The factory was rewarded countless art and industry fair prizes and was clearly on the same high standard as the best foreign ones.

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No doubt, this art case grand piano made by in 1908 Malmsjö with the serial number 8800, is one of the most beautiful in its kind that was ever made in Sweden. Having a mahogany case covered with geometrically formed brass and wooden inlays of different colors the grand piano gives a graceful and refined impression. The harpsichord like foot neutralizes much of the impression of gravity and contributes to a sense of soaring elegance. The decorations of the grand piano have stylistic and handicraft relationship to the Art Nouveau Style furniture of the parlor of the Mösseberg Health Resort (Winter Sanatorium) at Falköping that are designed by the architect Axel Lindegren (1860-1933) and made by the Brothers Eriksson at Taserud (Arvika). Probably, these are also the men behind the case of the Golden Grand Piano, especially since Axel Lindegren at this very time also designed other instruments for Malmsjö, for example a piano with related geometric pattern decor exhibited at the Stockholm Art Industry Fair in 1909.

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Thus, the Golden Grand may originally have been ordered for the Mösseberg Health Resort but was not finished in due time for the inauguration in November 1907. In the Winter Sanatorium there is now a black concert grand piano by Grotrian that breaks the stylistic unity of the Arvika furniture. The instrument should have been exhibited at the World Art and Industry Fair at St. Petersburg in 1908 but was never sent off. Instead it most probably was shown at the Stockholm Art Industry Fair in 1909. According to the catalogue there was ‘a parlor grand piano of mahogany with brass and wooden inlays of different colors, designed by Axel Lindegren, made and exhibited by the J.G. Malmsjö factory, Gothenburg’ shown at the fair. Thereafter, the grand piano was placed in the Malmsjö sales rooms at the Avenue in Gothenburg where it was bought in 1912 by the director of the Gothenburg Commercial Bank Claes Andersson. His daughter Margareta Orrenius (1915-2006) has told us what she knew of the grand piano to c. 1970 when it left the close family. The grand piano is on permanent loan to the Klaverens Hus for sale to us(KH 380).

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Notably, there is one more grand piano with the serial number 8800, a black concert grand that also belongs to the Klaverens Hus collections (KH 207).

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Klaverens Hus, Hemmansvägen 11 826 62  NORRALA

+46722820431

info@klaverenshus.se   www.klaverenshus.se  

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