$3,400
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sold
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Description
The Gothic-style barrel organ with decorative
fa‡ade and lower
storage cabinet was designed for home
entertainment despite its
church-like appearance. There are gilded
decorative faux-pipes
at the front; however, the actual music emanates
from hidden
interior pipes comprising one rank of stopped
wooden pipes and
two ranks of open metal pipes, 45 in all, plus a
drum and a
triangle An unlimited number of musical
combinations can be
chosen at will by the operator who cranks the
handle with one
hand, while working the organ stops with the
other. The pump
reservoir were recovered in the past and work
fine, and the
whole instrument has a very sweet melodic output.
There are
three music cylinders or barrels, each with ten
tunes. There is an
original tune label mounted on the bottom panel
door. The
tunes include gigues, bawdy reels and hornpipe
songs. The
organ bears a black cartouche with the
label _Ritz Astor & Comp,
79 Cornhill London_. German-born George Astor,
born to a poor
family, emigrated to London in the 1770_s,
establishing a
business as a flute maker, diversifying into
repaired repairing
church organs, and finally into making chamber
organs, popular
in homes. (His brother John Jacob Astor emigrated
to American
in 1783 where he made his fortune in the fur
trade). 70_H. x
26_W. x 17_D. George Astor, England, circa 1815.
From the
Benedict Rucker Collection.