The Evelyn Nesbit and Isaac D. Fletcher Steinway Model A Grand Piano

Piano available for viewing by appointment, please call (212) 289-5524 or email niki@larkmasonassociates.com

This Steinway fancy painted empire Model A grand piano, serial number 88495 was made in New York in 1897.  It was painted by Arthur Edward Blackmore (New York / England 1854-1921), and his signature and the date are visible on the panel at the front of the cover.  The piano was purchased from Steinway by the American industrialist, businessman, art collector, and museum benefactor Isaac D. Fletcher, for his mansion at the corner of East 79th Street and Fifth Avenue in 1898.  The mansion is known today as the Harry F. Sinclair House, which houses the Ukrainian Institute of America.
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Designed in the “French Renaissance” style, Fletcher remained in the mansion as did the piano until his death in 1917 when the mansion and Fletcher’s art collection were bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  In 1918 the executors of Isaac Fletcher’s estate sold the contents of the mansion, including this piano as lot 222, in a sale at “The American Art Galleries,” New York, January 25,26, 1918. The double-page illustrated lot reads:

“Decorated Mahogany Steinway Grand Piano: Specially designed case, Style A; made in rich polished mahogany, with elaborate decorations in color and gilding. Has square front legs and carved lyre. The front panel bears a painted ribbon scroll with the quotation, “As may the strains through my ear dissolve me into ecstacies. (sic)”  The painting including trophy and floral panel, with scrollwork, signed by Arthur E. Blackmore and dated 1898. Made by Steinway & Sons.”  
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Evelyn Nesbit (1884 or 1885 -1967), was an actress, the original “Gibson Girl” model for Charles Dana Gibson, chorus girl, and performer.  Early in her career she was introduced to Stanford White, the illustrious American architect and partner in McKim, Mead & White.  Shortly afterward she was in a relationship with John Barrymore, who proposed to her but was turned down.  Soon she married the socially prominent New Yorker, Harry K. Thaw.  Her life was portrayed by Joan Collins in the movie “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,” and she features as a main character in the book, film, and musical “Ragtime.”  An iconic beauty, she is famously known for the tragic love triangle with Stanford White and Thaw.  A contemporary retelling of Thaw’s 1906 shooting of his rival is in the HBO series The Gilded Age.  Thaw’s murder trial became “The Trial of The Century.”  After the trial, Nesbit successfully established herself in film and vaudeville, and by 1918, Nesbit was separating from her second husband and dance partner, Jack Clifford.  Following her separation, she performed in clubs and cabaret throughout the United States while remaining in New York until after World War II when she relocated to Los Angeles.  Nesbit had a stroke in 1956 and died in Los Angeles in 1967. 
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By repute, the piano was associated with Nesbit after 1918, most likely during the 1920’s. Notes and articles accompanying the piano mentioned “Salem N.Y. interests who deal in unusual theater memorabila” and that “The piano was once owned by Evelyn Nesbit, for whose love Harry K. Thaw shot and killed an architect.”  Salem, New York is associated with Fort Salem Theater, which was created by Judge William Drohan, who purchased and converted the First Presbyterian Church of Salem into a theater in 1972.  No records can be found associating Drohan with the piano.  However, the mention of ‘theatrical interests’ within Salem, New York as owners of the piano in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s establishes a possible connection between them and the purchaser, John K. Desmond, Jr., of Philadelphia.  Desmond opened the Desmond Hotel in Albany, New York where he installed the Fletcher / Nesbit piano sometime after 1981 in the Scrimshaw restaurant within the hotel.  His records indicate he purchased the piano from unknown sources fifteen years earlier.  After the Desmond Hotel was sold to the Crown Plaza Group, ownership of the piano was transferred to the current owner.