ABSTRACT
The instrument's owner, Thomas Henry, 4th Baron Foley of Kidderminster, is identified by inclusion of his arms, monogram and coronet; the insignia of several previous generations of family members are also incorporated as part of the instrument's elaborate decorative scheme. The piano stood in the family's gigantic, lavish country residence, Witley Court in Hertfordshire or Worcestershire, destroyed by fire in 1937 but still extant as a burned out stone shell. The Foley's stunning piano, insistently asserts the family's genealogical pedigree and, presumably, the security of their fortunes, despite the tide of history in a dramatically changing new world order. A square piano required considerably less space than a large grand. The social relations of historical instruments are hidden behind a disguise of aesthetic distraction. Arman's sculptures lift the veil from the pretence and the pretend. In the nineteenth century, the taste for musical dream narratives was considerable, concerning which two examples, such as the first is morbid, the second ecstatic.
