Dear Colleagues, I wanted to let you know that the Boston Public Library has deaccessioned the early American piano by Benjamin Crehore in its collections, and it will be offered at Skinner's Boston auction galleries on Sunday, March 7. This instrument (made in Milton, Massachusetts, probably sometime in the 1790s if not somewhat earlier) is apparently one of Crehore's two earliest surviving pianos (the other is in Salem, Massachusetts), and perhaps one of his earliest such instruments altogether. Although not the earliest piano maker in America, Crehore is nonetheless the first piano maker in the New England area. The BPL piano has never been restored, and is thus relatively important as a study piece. But the cosmetic condition of its casework is unfortunately rather poor, with much loss of finish and a generally dirty appearance, which would make it difficult to display without a certain amount of attention. As the MFA already owns a fine example of one of Crehore's pianos, it is not interested in pursuing the BPL instrument. But I surely hope that this significant piece of early American instrument manufacture can find a good home somewhere. Please pass this along to anyone else you think might be interested in knowing about this piano. Darcy Kuronen Curator of Musical Instruments Museum of Fine Arts 465 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115 617-369-3341 617-369-3026 (fax) dkuronen at mfa.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091222/ad5cf2cc/attachment-0001.htm>
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