Lot 27: - Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865 - 1945) , A 'Manxman' piano

circa 1900 oak, the doors fitted with wide iron hinges terminating in fleurs-de-lis , the interior fitted with iron and copper candle sconces, together with an associated stool, the upholstered seat lifting to reveal a storage compartment the facia board signed 'JOHN BROADWOOD & SONS LONDON', the stool interior with an ivorine label 'LIBERTY & C O L TD London, W.' Quantity: 2

measurements 123cm. high by 148cm. wide by 65cm. deep; alternate measurements 4ft ½in., 4ft 10¼in., 2ft 1½in.

Writing in Country Life, Michael Wilson notes of the Manxman design created by Baillie Scott in 1896, 'nobody previously had tried to incorporate the keyboard within the actual piano case, instead of allowing it to jut out from the main body of the instrument and so distract the eye. Nor had anyone thought of using the top and projecting sides of the case as sounding-boards, in order to improve the acoustics. Moreover the candle-holders were now fixed to the sides of the case instead of to its face, which meant that the candles were sufficiently far outside the player's range of vision not to dazzle him, though not so far as to be a possible physical hazard, as in Cave's 1893 design' ('Updating the Ivories: The Piano Designs of Baillie Scott 1865-1945', 22 Jan 1976, pp. 198-99). A similar piano was exhibited at the 1896 Arts and Crafts Exhibition, London, and was illustrated in the exhibition supplement of The Artist, vol. 18 (1896), p. 38. A drawing of the instrument, called a 'Cottage Piano', also appears in Baillie Scott's article, 'On the Choice of Simple Furniture', The Studio, vol. 10 (1897), p. 154, as shown below.