The Tallahassee Automobile Museum is also home to a collection of eight rare Steinway Pianos.
Steinway tells us this is the finest private collection in the world!
One of the favorites is this Whitehouse “Gold” Piano. One of the most famous and ornate instruments created by Steinway & Sons, the first White House piano (serial no. 100,000) is the third instrument to be reproduced as part of the Legendary Collection –one-of-a-kind re-creations of the most historically significant Steinway pianos.
The magnificent painted lid was originally created by Thomas Wilmer Dewing, and was exhibited as a painting before completing the piano at the White House in 1903. Paintings of 13 state seals and acanthus scroll encircle the case of this gilded instrument.
Another favorite is the Alma-Tadema Steinway. Commissioned in 1884, the highly acclaimed artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema designed an instrument so creative and finely crafted, it is considered the “grandest grand piano of all time.” True to the original, this magnificent re-creation captures the glorious elegance of the Victorian Era and introduced the new Legendary Collection honoring the history of the Steinway art case piano. Adorned with 2, 200 inlay of mother-of-pearl, the piano features an exquisitely hand-carved case, top lid and legs. Above the keyboard is an elaborate rendering of Sir Edward J. Poynter’s classic oil painting, The Wandering Minstrels.
The Alma-Tadema re-creation took more than 20 months to complete and was one of the most elaborate and expensive projects ever undertaken by Steinway & Sons. The original Alma-Tadema art case sold at Christie’s in 1997 for $1.2 million, the greatest amount paid for an art case piano to date.
On occasion, our pianos have been known to travel. In 2017, five of our precious instruments traveled across town to Florida State University for an epic concert with The Five Browns.
