Chapter 8
Broadened Tune Sheet
 Spieldose / music box
INTERCHANGEABLE (6 cyl.),
Fabriqué à Genève
A Fine And Rare 'Captains Desk' Davenport Side-Change Interchangeable Mandolin Cylinder Musical Box
Almost Certainly By B. A. Bremond
Tune sheet top center
Comb center
3: Orage dans de lagunes
4: La Varsovienne
5: Judas Maccabéus
Logo on the comb
Tennants
17 May 2023
With Blumberg of London Patent changing carriage, the casework attributed to Edwards & Roberts, London, circa 1875-80.
serial no. 36600, with the six cabinet-fitted cylinders playing 6 airs each, consisting a wide repertoire of music covering overtures, quadrilles, hymns and psalms, operatic arias and symphony passages, as noted on the period landscape tunesheet inside the lid for all six cylinders, the Mandolin teeth in groups of up to six across 5/9 of the single-section comb of 150 teeth, large spring motor with Blumberg & Co. start/stop and tune-select engraved brass operation board with twist controls, the cylinder changing carriage sliding out and loading on the right with the very elaborate and technically advanced design maintaining correct cylinder position and tooth safety prior to change, on reeded cast gilt bedplate in ebonised interior, the inset dustlid with a painted study of a Swiss lakeside town before snow capped mountains beyond, flanked by sound frets to the front, in fully fitted and exceptionally finely veneered Davenport, with the cylinder change flap access top right, above drawers for the remaining library of cylinders, with the main musical box body superbly veneered in butterfly burr-walnut, crossbanded and with strung inlay before coromandel-hued ebonised reserve, ivory escutcheon, the piano-lid front fall opening to reveal fitted writing slope with smaller triple bird's eye maple and boxwood strung drawer fronts, matching burr-walnut frieze below fielding the ivory escutcheon, the main large front panel of corona-figured butterfly cut burr-walnut veneer with kingwood crossbanding and further burr-walnut vertical reserves, interlaced with ebonised moulding, on shaped and carved ebonised supports; with period diagrams of the interchangeable design (a little tattered but mostly legible), and some hand-written notes by an unknown hand at an unknown time going through each cylinder, noting pinning condition and thoughts on notational qualities - Musical box body depth 14", (35.5cm), overall width 30" (76.2cm), the overall height 43.1/2in. (105cm), the overall depth 24" (61cm), the cylinders each 16in. (40.5cm), the diameters 2.1/2" (6.4cm) - (the extreme section comprising 21 teeth on the comb replaced as one cluster,
pinning within a mean-average of 90% throughout, cylinder cement conditions unknown, current cylinder fitted
|