IMPROVED PIANOS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1699, 31 July 1879, Page 3

IMPROVED PIANOS.

The •• Bailder " describes a sumptuous pianoforte. It says s—" Sines Mr Tadema set the example, it seems not improbable that the beautifying of ihe outer case of the pianoforte wi'l become a fashion with those who can afford it. Our attention has been asked to ono just completed for Sir Julian Goldsmid, and which is unquestionably a splendid specimen of workmanship in wood inlay. The top of the lid is decorated with a double inlaid band round the edges, with panels over part of the surface bordered by similar bands, and filled with sprigs of flowers and foliage executed in inlay ; the sides are diapered in a small geometrical pattern with very good effect, along with other ornament of a more Kenaissunce type. The execution of the diaper-work, consisting as it does of multitudes of very small pieces, is a most perfect piece of painstaking workmanship Wo cannot help suggesting, however, that the value of snch decoration is, afier all, nltimately in the idea embodied in the design, raUier than in mere workmanship, however refined. This is exactly what ia deficient in the present iustance. There ii nothing in the design specially related to the purpose of the instrument, nothing, in fact, suggestive of any leading motive at all. The decoration is suitable to the process employed, but it hardly seemed worth wh'Je to spend a good many hundred pounds in producing, in a very costly manner, designs of which no more can be said than this."