This Erard grand piano was commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1856 and was intended as a showpiece to form part of the furnishings of The State Rooms at Buckingham Palace.
For Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the piano was the centre of music-making at home and they installed pianos in the private apartments of all their residences. Together they played arrangements of overtures and symphonies, and accompanied each other in song. The gilded case is decorated in the French early... See More
This Erard grand piano was commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1856 and was intended as a showpiece to form part of the furnishings of The State Rooms at Buckingham Palace.
For Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the piano was the centre of music-making at home and they installed pianos in the private apartments of all their residences. Together they played arrangements of overtures and symphonies, and accompanied each other in song. The gilded case is decorated in the French early eighteenth-century style with cherubs and singeries – comical scenes involving monkeys playing musical instruments and making mischief. Queen Victoria had owned a piano decorated in a similar manner almost twenty years earlier.
