Grand Piano

Details

Descriptive Terms

grand pianos
rosewood (wood)
oak (wood)
ivory (tooth component)
Instrument, Keyboard
Piano
Piano, Grand
Piano, Grand

Label

This grand piano in the "cocked hat" style was made by Hallett & Cumston, Boston. Part of the original house furnishings purchase by Captain Richard Tucker Jr. and installed in a prominent place in the parlor, the piano was an important part of family entertainment for themselves, friends, and visitors. Mollie had significant musical talent, playing not only the piano but also the mandolin. She wrote a song called "The Tryst."
Used in Cherished Possessions 2002-2005: This Boston-made grand piano cost Richard and Mollie Tucker $600 when they purchased it in 1858 to furnish their new home in Wiscasset, Maine. The piano was both an impressive piece of furniture and a symbolic addition. In many middle-class households in Victorian America, the piano replaced the hearth as the center of the home. The instrument came to represent achievement, refinement, and taste. It also meant something more-the piano signified the chaste and virtuous home, the symbolic opposite of the degradation and depravity of life in the teeming industrial world outside.

Inscription

Painted above keyboard: ""Hallet & Cumston./ Boston""

Associated Building

Original to Castle Tucker (Wiscasset, Me.),

Additional Identification Number

1998.299.1,2

Maker

Hallett & Cumston (Maker)

Location of Origin

Boston, MA, USA

Dimensions

38 3/4 x 68 x 60 1/2 (HxWxD) (inches)

Credit Line

Gift of Miss Jane S. Tucker

Accession Number

1998.299.1-.2

Places

Massachusetts (United States)