CIRCA 1880 MUSIC BOX ESTORATION
Unless you visit a museum or stately homes of Europe, Museums and restored Mansions in big cities, you may never have seen such pieces in their restored condition. For many people these music boxes are a relic which does not exactly fit with today’s more functional music sound systems.
In the past the cabinet makers workshop, as now, would not necessarily have employed the many skilled craftsmen necessary to complete the final project.
A Turner, Carver, Graver, finisher, Marquetrian and many others would have been subcontracted.
By the late 1800’s into the early 1900’s more and more people joined the gentry and could afford the current decorative life style furniture; this placed a great demand on the available skilled craftsmen, inevitably leading to wide variation in skills exhibited in the finished project. The box in this case was made by someone who was unaware or did not care about the eventual wood expansion and the damage it would do to any veneer when glued on it, or expected the cabinet prime cabinet shop to cross-band the lid with an addition straight grain veneer across the width, prior to laying the final design, preventing the crack shown above, which I now have done, before copying and replacing the complete design.
The Marquetrian responsible for the lid design would not have been responsible for the project design as in this case he would have either been given the size, shape, and dimensions and a rough idea as to what was required and provided or with a design sketch and an assortment of veneers which could be used. Knowing the process, I enjoy finding the hidden marks left by the makers, making the necessary drawings and calculations to correctly match the scale and design and resolve any project issues while following the same winding path they had done in conceiving and making the piece.