Square piano by Francisco Flórez, Madrid, ca. 1800

'The casework is of mahogany and rosewood decorated with brass banding, carved and gilt foliage, and plaques of cut horn and paper set on a blue ground to resemble Wedgwood jasperware medallions. The French-style frame has square tapered legs with gilt brass mounts. (The music stand is missing). The wrest-plank is of massive construction with a 50mm layer of beech laid on the same depth of pine. The bottom board is of oak rather than the lime or pine usually found on instruments in the English style of construction. The soundboard of spruce measures 3-4mm in diameter and a triangular piece has been inlaid at the right-hand rear corner. The scantlings are c. 18mm.'

Howard Schott, Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Part I: Keyboard Instruments (London, 1985), p. 109.

Purchased from Señor Juan Riaño, Madrid for £21 in 1876

Riaño reports MA/1/R741/7 1876-7
Jan 4th 1876 -Riañonotes that he bought the rectangular piano as instructed (24/12/75) from Senor [sic] Jesusa, payment of £21 through J Allard & Co. To be sent via Cadiz on the English steamer ‘Cadiz’. “As dealers here do not always ask the last price for the objects they sell I have been able to obtain this piano for 2000 reales £21 instead of the £30 which she [sic] originally asked for it.” Later Riano refers to the dealer’s receipt sent to London (not on file).


The name 'FLOREZ MADRID' was discovered on the outer keys, written in ink, during conservation work at the Museum in 1963 (Departmental Catalogue).

English-type square pianos were apparently made in Spain in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. An instrument of this type dated 1788 (Koster Collection, New Bedford, Massachusetts), inscribed Del Mormol / en Sevilla, for example, is remarkably similar to English squares of a few years earlier as regards form, construction, type of action and even the casework, albeit of lesser refinement. The English influence to be seen in the pianos made by Flórez for the Royal Palace in Madrid has been noted (Juan Jose Junquera, La decoración y el mobilario de los palcios de Carlos IV, Madrid, 1979, 32. A cabinet upright by Flórez in the Palacio Real is illustrated there, Plate 6). The present piano by Flórez, decorated with gilt ornaments and medallions inspired by Wedgwood originals, recalls the remarkable Broadwood piano of 1796 with a case said to have been designed by Thomas Sheraton. The Broadwood is a grand piano (formerly in the Deerfield Museum, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) with a satinwood case set with 'Wedgwood's and Tassie's medallions' as the original bill states, and is richly decorated with gilt ornament. It bears the Spanish royal arms because it was presented to the Queen of Spain, Maria Luisa de Parma, by Don Manuel de Godoy, Prime Minister of Spain, who had commissioned it in London. (See James 1930, Plate LXII and William Dale, Tschudi, The Harpsichord Maker, London, 1913.)

Howard Schott, Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Part I: Keyboard Instruments (London, 1985), p. 109.

Until about 1830, small pianos were shaped like rectangular boxes; in England they were known as ‘square pianos’. By 1791 Francisco Flórez (died 1824) was the leading piano maker in Madrid. He had spent the previous two years in London, studying English piano-making methods.

Flórez fitted this instrument with an English action, but followed French fashions in decorating the case and legs in the Neo-classical style. Jean-Demosthène Dugourc (1749-1825), the favourite designer and supplier of luxury goods to Carlos IV of Spain (reigned 1788-1808), propagated this style in Spain. This fine example of Spanish Neo-Classical casework closely resembles an unsigned instrument in the Palacio Real in Madrid. It may well have been made for someone at the court of Carlos IV (reigned 1788-1808) as Flórez is known to have supplied instruments to the King and the Condesa-Duquesa de Benavente.

48:1 to 4-1876