Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
The Music Trade Review
APRIL 28, 1928
New Knabe Warerooms
Imposing Decorative Plan
Give Over 30,000 Square Feet for Display of American Piano
Co. Lines in Ampico Tower Building, Forty-Seventh
Street and Fifth Avenue, New York City
("HARMING and elegant simplicity, so characteristic of the Georgian period of the late
eighteenth century English decorative art, is the dominant motif of the new Knabe Ware-
rooms, which have been recently opened in the Ampico Tower Building, on the north-
west corner of Forty-seventh street and Fifth avenue, New York. The building itself, which
lias just achieved completion, is the work of Warren & Wetmore, and is a splendid addition
to that long row of business structures which in the past few years have made this section of
A
struments which it contains appear to their best
advantage.
In the rear of the main warerooms is a stair-
way in Travatine stone with wrought-iron bal-
ustrades inlaid with gold leading to the base-
ment showrooms and Ampico department. The
lobby of this, which is finished with Travertine
stone and tile, is decorated in Italian Renais-
sance, with beamed and hand-pressed plastered
ceiling, painted in a characteristic design in
pastel colors. A number of Ampico demon-
stration rooms are placed here, with the Am-
pico record department in the front. Special
ventilating apparatus has been installed.
The second floor warerooms, reached by pri-
vate elevators, are decorated in French gray
with contrasting draperies. The main decora-
tive feature of this room are two copies of the
famous Fragonard panels of the Morgan Col-
lection in the Metropolitan Museum in New
York. The glowing color of these makes a
charming contrast with the walls, a contrast
Interior Views of the New Knabe Warerooms in NewYork
Fifth avenue the leading shopping thorough- trusive through their entire harmony with the which is enhanced by several eighteenth cen-
fare of the United States, if not of the world. general decorative scheme. Two Flemish tury commodes in Chinese lacquer that are
Its location is ideal, being directly in the cen- tapestry panels, of the school of Brussels of
scattered about the room. The third, floor is
ter of this section.
the eighteenth century, from the famous Sam- practically a replica of the second. However,
Faced by large display windows directly upon son Series, showing Samson at Gaza and Sam- it contains front and rear display rooms with
Fifth avenue and which provide an uninter- son and Delilah, similar to the world-famous a consolidated collection office which has a di-
rupted view from the street of the entire first- series now in the Hapsburg Collection in rect entrance through the Brentano Building
floor warerooms, these have been decorated in Vienna, decorate the walls. A painting of Maria at 1 West Forty-seventh street.
The new Knabe Warerooms have over 30,000
pale green and gold laid over red lacquer with Theresa, of Spain, the first wife of Louis XIV
square feet of display space, and are equipped
dark rugs, providing a beautiful background of France, by Mignard, the court painter of
for the display of the instruments. The fur- that period, is also there. The general impres- with every modern facility for the adequate
nishings have been specially designed for this sion received from the room is a restful and display of the various lines that are handled.
room, being for the most .part replicas of genu- harmonious simplicity, charming in its general The interior decorative scheme was carried out
ine eighteenth century pieces, and are unob- effect and beautifully designed to make the in- by the J. G. Valiant Co., Baltimore, Md.
NEWARK N. J.
ESTABLISHED 18O2
ONE OF AMERICA'S
Z""
GRANDS
FINE PIANOS
UPRIGHTS
THE LAUTER-HUMANA
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