Biedermeier Piano Bench

About the Item

Lovely antique piano bench with internal compartment for music sheet storage. The perfect accompaniment to a beautiful piano, this piece is suitable for duets (seats two). The empire style legs emphasizes the regality of an accomplished musician. Biedermeier in music was most evident in the numerous creations for in-home music making. Published arrangements of operatic excerpts, German Lieder, and some symphonic works that could be performed at the piano without professional musical training, illustrated the broadened reach and popularity of music in this period. Composers from this period include Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt. The Biedermeier period does not refer to the era as a whole, but to a particular mood and set of trends that grew out of the unique underpinnings of the time in Central Europe. There were two driving forces for the development of the period. One was the growing urbanization and industrialization leading to a new urban middle class, which created a new kind of audience for the arts. The other was the political stability prevalent under Klemens von Metternich following the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna. The effect was for artists and society in general to concentrate on the domestic and (at least in public) the non-political. Writers, painters, and musicians began to stay in safer territory, and the emphasis on home life for the growing middle class meant a blossoming of furniture design and interior decorating.

Dimensions:

Height: 18.5 in (46.99 cm)Width: 26 in (66.04 cm)Depth: 14 in (35.56 cm)Seat Height: 18.5 in (46.99 cm)

Style:

Biedermeier (Of the Period)

Materials and Techniques:

Birch,Hand-Carved

Place of Origin:

Sweden

Period:

1840-1849

Date of Manufacture:

1840