Lot 153: - Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865 - 1945) , An Important Arts and Crafts Piano

circa 1896 sycamore and ebonised sycamore veneer inlaid with mother-of-pearl and pewter, the front and sides inlaid with a stylised foliate motif and red-painted flowerheads flanked by chequered banding, the hinged lid and double-hinged doors inlaid to the reverse with conforming flowerheads and ebony butterfly joints, the angled score shelf flanked by detachable brass candle sconces, each with a blue-green enamelled heart motif, the case containing a metal-strung frame the facia board inlaid in brass 'Rönisch', one top of side rail stamped '23894' and '05230', frame with applied brass plaque cast with three coats of arms and 'Rönisch', and another cast 'Carl Rönisch Dresden, N'

measurements 129cm. high by 161.5cm. wide by 72cm. deep; alternate measurements 4ft 2¾in., 5ft 3½in., 2ft 4¼in.

FROM A PRIVATE UNITED KINGDOM COLLECTION
The 'Manxman' piano created by Baillie Scott in 1896 was a revolution in the development of the upright form of the instrument. '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,' writes Michael Wilson. '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' ('Updating the Ivories: The Piano Designs of Baillie Scott, 1865-1945', Country Life, 22 January 1976, pp. 198-99). Such advances coincided with the designer's discovery by Hermann Muthesius, cultural attaché at the German Embassy in London. Muthesius devoted much of his time in Britain to studying avante-garde Arts and Crafts architects, including Baillie Scott, of whom he wrote, 'with Baillie Scott we are among the purely Northern poets among British architects' (Diane Haigh, Baillie Scott: The Artistic House, London, 1995, p. 25). Muthesius wasted no time in extolling Baillie Scott's genius to notable patrons back home, including Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, whose famous 1897 commission for two rooms at the ducal palace in Darmstadt sprang directly from this relationship. Baillie Scott's popularity on the Continent extended well beyond the Hessian court. While Crown Princess Marie of Romania, Ernst Ludwig's sister, provided additional publicity by hiring Baillie Scott to build her a romantic tree house, he also found himself much in demand among the bourgeoisie. Baillie Scott designs appeared in Arts and Crafts exhibitions in Berlin, Mannheim, Dresden and Vienna, and while the Guild of Handicraft executed a small number of pieces for export, Glückert of Darmstadt and the Deutsche Werkstätte at Dresden Hellerau proved themselves equally expert at translating Baillie Scott's drawings into actual objects. This internationalist approach demonstrated itself even in early commissions such as the Darmstadt palace: the Guild built the furniture for a reception room and John Broadwood provided the duke's piano movement, but local craftsmen fitted out the breakfast room. It is therefore unsurprising that Rönisch, the piano makers to the courts of Saxony, Spain, Sweden, Austro-Hungary and Russia, provided the movement for a Baillie Scott 'Manxman' just as the deluge of European interest in his work was beginning. From the serial numbers on the case the Rönisch factory has been able to date the inner workings to about 1896, suggesting that this is one of the very earliest 'Manxman' pianos. While at the current stage it has not been possible to conclusively identify the manufacturer of the case, the design shows a number of features identical to Baillie Scott's later works by a variety of makers. The interior of the doors, for example, is identical to that of a Baillie Scott cabinet made by J.P. White circa 1904 (illustrated in The Studio, vol. 32 [1904], pp. 240-41), while the motif of ebony butterfly keys appears in a Baillie Scott interior executed by the Deutsche Werkstätte that same year (James Kornwolf, M.H. Baillie Scott and the Arts and Crafts Movement, Pioneers of Modern Design, Baltimore, 1972, p. 328). The metalwork is very closely related to that which appears on other Dresden-made Baillie Scott pieces (illustrated in Wendy Kaplan, The Arts and Crafts Movement in Europe and America, Los Angeles, 2004, pp. 70-71), and even the unusual juxtaposition of the case's stark, stylised red flowers with the softer hearts on the interior candle sconces presages Baillie Scott's 1901 'Haus eines Kunstfreundes', where the motifs both appear in the music room panelling (Haigh, p. 27). The early date of the Rönisch movement, predating the publication of many of these signature motifs, makes this an extraordinarily rare as well as an extraordinarily fine example of the 'Manxman' design.