[Pipe Organ]
Organ Pipe Donation Box
Charming church donation box, made from a flue pipe taken from an old organ, the words "Thank You" framing a slot for coins. United Kingdom, ca. 1900. Surface wear commensurate with age, else in fine condition. 60.25 inches (153 cm.) tall.The length of the pipe is approximately 5.02 feet and would thus have rendered either a G or F#. The modern pipe organ traces its origins all the way back to the Ancient Greek hydraulis, an organ powered by displaced water. Byzantine organs of the 6th and 7th centuries introduced bellows, and the first English organ "of which any detailed record exists was built in Winchester Cathedral in the 10th century. It was a huge machine with 400 pipes, which needed two men to play it and 70 men to blow it, and its sound could be heard throughout the city." By the mid-17th century, pipe organs had evolved into some of the most complex mechanical devices in existence. (Don Michael Randel (Ed.) (1986). The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.) (19231)
Art & Design Classical Music Art/Sculpture