1850 Square Grand

For some time now, we have been working on an 1850 "square grand" piano. Square grands were a rather short-lived design during the middle 1800s, just before the modern grand piano was developed. Surprisingly there are quite a few square grand pianos around. Unfortunately most of them are not functional and not in good condition.

Our customer brought to us quite a unique piano. It has inlaid mother-of-pearl designs, mother-of-pearl keytops, and a beautiful Brazilian mahogany cabinet. This piano, too, was not in very good shape, but we took the challenge and have been working on it.

The action (moving parts) in a square grand are completely different that modern pianos and, guess what? There are no catalogs of parts as there are with modern pianos. That means, anything that is broken or missing must be hand-carved and custom made.

Here are a few pics before and after...