Broadwood piano in a Charles Robert Ashbee case, estimate £6000-8000 at Sworders.
An upright Broadwood piano in a Charles Robert Ashbee case - an instrument that was part of an exhibition of British Arts & Crafts in Hungary in 1902 - is estimated at £6000-8000 as part of the January 16 Design sale.
Fashioned in Spanish mahogany inlaid with holly and applied with pierced strap hinges, this is one of only a handful known and (numbered 95406, model 8) has an impeccable provenance.
The Broadwood Archives lists its date of manufacture (it was finished on February 27, 1902), the price paid by one Mr C Watson Low (£118.2.6) and its part in the British Applied Arts Exhibition at the National Museum of Decorative Art in Budapest in September-November 1902. It was sent to Hungary along with another Arts & Crafts piano designed by Hugh Mackay Baillie Scott.
A detail of the Broadwood piano in a Charles Robert Ashbee case, estimate £6000-8000 at Sworders.
Watson Low later gave his Ashbee piano and its stool to his niece, Miss C M Low, who used it to teach piano until her retirement in 2001, and it is her daughter who is now selling it. She contacted Sworders after she found that a near-identical piano had been sold by the auction house in 2014 for £10,400.
