An extremely rare piano from the 1920 will be offered by Sotheby’s at its 20th Century Design auction in March. The event will take place in New York, where passionate collectors will have the chance to bid for this long lost piano with an innovative design by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann.
The French designer created numerous Art Deco interiors and beautiful pieces of furniture, and his work is very much appreciated by connoisseurs. He also created a very limited number of pianos – six in all – of which only three were designed in this unique manner: “Where the piano should go in it goes out on the side. Convex versus concave.”
Estimated to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000, the piano is made of American walnut and ebony, with ivory accents and gilt bronze trims. It was part of the historic 1925 art deco exhibition in Paris, before becoming a ‘passenger’ on the famous French ocean liner SS Normandie (the Queen of Seas) during the 1930s.
In the early 1940s the founders of The Buffalo Evening News – the Butler family – purchased it and kept it in their beautiful mansion, where it remained until a few years ago, when the residence was sold to a local university. Now the piano is ready to find a new home that will cherish and fully appreciate its uniqueness.
