JOHN BROADWOOD & SONS grand piano. England, XIX century.Rosewood and gilded bronze mounts.Measurements: 97 x 260 x 140 cm.This piece belongs to the Marbella Club Hotel collection.Grand piano of the prestigious musical company John Broadwood & Sons, whose name is engraved on the case. Made of rosewood, with gilded bronze mounts as decoration, supported on eight inverted pyramidal legs with casters. John Broadwood & Sons is one of the most prestigious musical companies in the world, as the instruments have been enjoyed by such celebrities as Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Frédéric Chopin.Broadwood and Sons is an English piano manufacturing company founded in 1728 by Burkat Shudi. The company continued, after his death in 1773, under the tutelage of John Broadwood. John Broadwood, a Scottish carpenter and cabinetmaker, arrived in London in 1761 and began working for the Swiss harpsichord maker Shudi Burkat. Years later, John married Shudi's daughter and became a partner in the firm in 1770. As the popularity of the harpsichord declined, the firm concentrated more and more on piano making, abandoning harpsichord/clavichord manufacture altogether in 1793. Since Broadwood's son, named James Shudi Broadwood, had worked for the firm since 1785, in 1795 the firm was renamed John Broadwood & Son. And when Broadwood's third son, named Thomas Broadwood, became a partner in 1808, the firm assumed the name John Broadwood & Sons Ltd, a name it retains to this day. Broadwood produced his first table piano in 1771, from a model by Johannes Zumpe, and worked assiduously to develop and perfect the instrument, moving the snatch board of early pianos (which was located next to the case as on harpsichords) to the back of the case in 1781, innovating on the keys and on hand substitution stopping with the pedals. In 1789, at the suggestion of Jan Ladislav Dussek, the grand piano keyboard was extended to more than five octaves of CC in the treble, and then to six full octaves in 1794. With these improvements, the instruments became very popular. The company owns the Royal Warrant as Queen Elizabeth II's piano maker.