Duet stand
Sebastien Erard (1752 - 1831)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1818 (purchased)
Materials
Pine, paint, lacquer, ormolu and brass
Measurements
1185 x 51 x 36.5 cm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 608181.2
Summary
A blue-japanned and gilt-highlighted duet stand, English, circa 1818, made by Sébastien Erard (1752 - 1831) of London, part of a set with NT 608181.1, a blue-japanned and gilt-highlighted harp or piano stool. Both now green japanned but probably originally they were blue but have discoloured over time. Fitted with a pair of trellis-filled hinged music stands, with rests, and each with an articulated brass arm fitted with a candle-cup and a drip-pan. The whole rising and falling on an adjustable brass rod in a turned and fluted column on three rectangular-section outswept supports fitted with brass caps and chased ormolu scaly talon and ball feet. Decorated throughout with gilt scrolling foliage and arabesques.
Full description
This stand, and its accompanying japanned piano or harp stool, were purchased in 1818 at the same time as Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick (1770 - 1832) purchased a harp from the firm of Sébastien Erard (1752 - 1831) for his wife Sophia (née Dubouchet), 2nd Lady Berwick (d. 1875). A bill dated 27th May (or Aug?) 1818 records the purchase of 'a patent double movement harp elegantly ornamented' for the sum of £168. 'A musick stool to correspond' cost £10 10s; 'a musick stand' cost £9 9s. Sophia was having harp lessons at the time from the fashionable musician and harp teacher from France, Robert Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (1789 - 1856). Lord Berwick went bankrupt in 1827 and he and his wife went to live in Italy to escape the creditors. After her husband's death in 1832, Sophia wrote to her brother in law, William, 3rd Lord Berwick to try and get some of her possessions back. She wrote: ‘…my harp stand & stool as belonging to my Harp & being light I would wish sent to me.’ Her music stand and stool never reached her as they remain at Attingham today. An almost identical - although undecorated - music stand sold Sotheby's, 23rd October 2013, New York, Lot 199, bore a plaque reading ERARD'S / LONDON. (Megan Wheeler, 2017)
Provenance
Purchased in 1818 by Thomas Noel Hill, 2nd Baron Berwick (1770 - 1832) from the firm of Sébastien Erard (1752 - 1831) for £9 9s. Listed in the Inventory taken at Attingham Park in 1861 (p. 102), the Inventory taken there in 1913 (p. 78), the 1947 Probate Inventory (p. 31) and the Inventory taken c. 1953 (p. 31, no. 19). Thence by descent, and transferred to the National Trust from HM Treasury in 1976.
Makers and roles
Sebastien Erard (1752 - 1831), musical instrument maker