Passed
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Description
Appearing to be seated at keyboard of a faux-rosewood metal piano with metal keys filigree musical rack is a bisque-head lady with blue glass eyes,painted features,closed mouth,metal torso,wearing her original flowing gown designed to hide the design fact that her arms are attached at her waist and that she is legless.Movements and Music. Her hands glide in a realistic manner over the keys as the music plays,her head turning from side-to-side and her body swaying gracefully. A Swiss cylinder musical movement is concealed inside the piano itself. Jerome B. Secor,Connecticut,circa 1880. The American inventor,founder of the Secor Sewing Machine C,manufacturer of early typewriters and the Secor mechanical singing bird which he exhibited at the 1873 International Exposition in Vienna,turned to the distraction of creating mechanical toys when the financial panic of 1876 destroyed his business. Serendipitously,he shared a duplex home with Charles Ives,the toy maker who encouraged Secor in the design of mechanical musical objects,highlighted by the present object that Secor named the Mechanical Piano Player.