Mouth Organ
This instrument, known only by this specimen, has the shape of a baroque-period racket and was seemingly meant as a historicist "new racket." It speaks with pressure and suction, has two-by-five finger buttons, and is tuned like a harmonica in D. The arrangement of the buttons, however, allows one to play chords, making the instrument well suited for accompaniment. Another concept was to provide a large resonance chamber, in the form of the hollow wooden cylinder underneath the reeds at the upper end of the instrument. The sound of the instrument has a special tenderness. Peckmann is also known as a maker of music boxes.
The mouth pipe is a reproduction.
The mouth pipe is a reproduction.
Artwork Details
- Title: Mouth Organ
- Maker: P. Peckmann
- Date: ca. 1835
- Geography: Vienna, Austria
- Culture: Austrian
- Medium: Wood, leather, various materials
- Dimensions: H.: 19 cm (7-1/2 in.); Diam.: 10.8 cm (4-1/4 in.)
- Classification: Aerophone-Free Reed
- Credit Line: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889
- Object Number: 13.30
- Curatorial Department: Musical Instruments
More Artwork
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Josef Serpek
ca. 1862
Leopold Uhlmann
ca. 1840
Johann Anton Stauffer
ca. 1835–40
probably Austrian
early 19th century
Alexandre Pere & Fils
1850–55
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