# Grand Piano > Bartolomeo Cristofori - 1720 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/bartolomeo-cristofori/cristofori-grand-piano-1720/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-21 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Bartolomeo Cristofori - **Date:** 1720 - **Medium:** Cypress, boxwood, paint, leather, fir - **Dimensions:** Height 86.5 cm; width parallel to the keyboard 95.6 cm; case length 228.6 cm - **Object type:** Musical instrument - **Period:** Italian, Florence, early eighteenth century - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gallery 684 - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary The oldest surviving piano, made in Florence in 1720 by the man who invented the instrument, and the only one of the three surviving Cristoforis that can still be played. It has been in the Metropolitan Museum since 1889 as part of the Crosby Brown Collection.It is also the most altered of the three. Its soundboard was replaced in 1938 and its fifty-four-note compass was shifted by about half an octave, so the instrument recorded as the world's oldest piano does not sound like the object Cristofori built; the instrument-maker Denzil Wraight's assessment is that its original condition has been irretrievably lost. The maker's inscription is written in ink on the present hammer rail, which the Museum believes may originally have been the nameboard, so even the 1720 sits on a component that has moved.The chain runs through two Mocennis, a Florentine named Diego Martelli, and an American banker's wife. It was restored in Florence in 1875 by Cesare Ponsicchi, who signed the rail and published the first Italian history of the piano the following year - one year after Leo Puliti's research had taken the credit for the invention back from Gottfried Silbermann. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1720-unknown** Made in Florence by Bartolomeo Cristofori `[documented]` (origin) Inscribed in ink FACIEBAT FLORENTIAE MDCCXX on the present hammer rail. Cristofori had been in Medici service since 1688, but no bill for any pianoforte survives among the many bills he submitted, so no document names a commissioner, a price or a destination for this instrument. - **1720-the nineteenth century** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) The Museum's provenance line begins with Dr Fabio Mocenni and gives him no dates. Nothing is recorded of the instrument's whereabouts for roughly a century and a half after it was made, including whether it ever left Florence. - **before 1875-unknown** Dr Fabio Mocenni `[documented]` (ownership) First named owner on the Museum's provenance line. No dates are given and nothing further about him appears in the sources consulted. - **unknown** Ernesta Mocenni `[documented]` (descent) Second on the Museum's line, presumably by family descent from Fabio Mocenni, though the Museum does not state the relationship. - **unknown-before 1889** Diego Martelli `[documented]` (ownership) Named on the Museum's provenance line as 'Signor Diego Martelli', with no dates. The Florentine art critic Diego Martelli (1839-1896) - champion of the Macchiaioli, friend of Pissarro, twice painted by Degas in 1879 - was in Florence throughout the period in which this instrument was restored there in 1875 and sold to an American collector by 1889. No source consulted makes the identification, and this record does not assert it. - **before 1889-1889** Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown, New York `[documented]` (purchase) Mrs John Crosby Brown assembled the collection of musical instruments that carries her family name. No purchase price, date or agent is published for this instrument. - **1889-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (gift) Accession 89.4.1219a-c, credit line The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889. Soundboard replaced 1938; shown in Keynotes: Two Centuries of Piano Design in 1985; on view in Gallery 684 in 2026. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This instrument has never been offered at public auction in any record consulted. It moved from Florence to New York by private sale before 1889 and entered the Museum as part of a gift, so there is no hammer price and no premium anywhere in its chain. No figure is published for what Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown paid for it, or to whom. ## Exhibitions - Keynotes: Two Centuries of Piano Design, 29 May - 29 November 1985, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985 - On view, Gallery 684, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2026 ## Literature - Stewart S. Pollens, Bartolomeo Cristofori and the Invention of the Piano (Cambridge University Press, 2017) - NOT read; the standard monograph and the first replacement this entry needs - Stewart S. Pollens, A History of Stringed Keyboard Instruments (Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 35, 324, 335, 337, 358-59, 396, 510-11 - NOT read - Stewart S. Pollens, 'The Gatti-Kraus Piano Action Ascribed to Bartolomeo Cristofori', The Galpin Society Journal LV (2002), p. 277 - NOT read - Stewart S. Pollens, 'Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence', The Galpin Society Journal 66 (2013), pp. 23, 37 - NOT read - Denzil Wraight (2006), p. 635, cited for the assessment that the instrument's original condition has been irretrievably lost - NOT read directly; taken from the citation in the Wikipedia article - Sally B. Brown, 'A Gift of Sound: The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments', Metropolitan Museum Journal (2018), p. 39, fig. 51 - NOT read - Edwin M. Good, Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos, 2nd ed. (Stanford, 2001), pp. 37-39 - NOT read - Cesare Ponsicchi, Il pianoforte, sua origine e sviluppo (Florence, 1876) - NOT read; by the man who restored this instrument the year before ## Open questions - Is the 'Signor Diego Martelli' of the Museum's provenance the Florentine critic Diego Martelli (1839-1896), champion of the Macchiaioli, whom Degas painted twice in 1879? The Museum gives no dates and no source consulted makes the identification. - Who were Dr Fabio Mocenni and Ernesta Mocenni, what was their relationship, and when and how did the piano reach them? The Museum names them and nothing else. - Where was the instrument between 1720 and the nineteenth century? Roughly a hundred and fifty years are undocumented, including whether it ever left Florence. - What exactly did Cesare Ponsicchi do in 1875? He signed and dated the hammer rail, but the extent of his intervention is not published, and it is not clear whether the compass shift is his work or the 1938 campaign's. - Was the present hammer rail originally the nameboard, as the Museum suggests, and if so when was it moved? The maker's date rests on that component. - What did Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown pay, and to whom? No price, date or agent is published for the acquisition of this instrument. - How much of the case, action and keyboard is original? The soundboard is 1938 and the compass has been shifted, but no published component-by-component survey has been located here. ## Sources - [1] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for Grand Piano, Bartolomeo Cristofori, 1720, accession 89.4.1219a-c. Overview, additional dimensions, signatures and markings, provenance, exhibition history and references tabs all read 4 August 2026. - [2] Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection API, object 501788: isPublicDomain true, medium 'Cypress, boxwood, paint, leather, fir', credit line 'The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889'. - [3] Wendy Powers, 'The Piano: The Pianofortes of Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731)', Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2003. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Bartolomeo Cristofori'. TERTIARY. Read as raw wikitext rather than as a rendered summary. Carries the Denzil Wraight assessment (Wraight 2006, p. 635), the 1938 soundboard replacement and the compass shift, the 1700 Medici inventory wording, and Stewart Pollens's observation about the missing bills. To be replaced by Pollens, Bartolomeo Cristofori and the Invention of the Piano (Cambridge University Press, 2017). - [5] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for Double Bass, accession 1980.112, headed 'Former Attribution: Bartolomeo Cristofori', with the markings field reading 'Label (spurious)'. - [6] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for Serpon En Metallo, accession 89.4.1107, Leopoldo Franciolini (Italian, Florence 1844-1920 Florence), 19th century, credit line 'The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889'. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Diego Martelli'. TERTIARY, read as raw wikitext. Used only for the identity, dates and career of the Florentine critic of that name, not to assert that he is the Martelli in the Museum's provenance line. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.