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Lot 3432

A Cole Porter William Knabe & Co. piano

5 May 2013, 10:00 PDT
Los Angeles

Sold for US$16,250 inc. premium

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A Cole Porter William Knabe & Co. piano

Ebonized baby grand piano, serial number 149744, manufactured in 1952. Together with matching adjustable bench with tufted black leather seat. Purchased by Cole Porter for his Brentwood home and later given to his close friend Jean Howard. During this time, Porter was working on the score for Can-Can, which would open on Broadway in May 1953.

Howard first met Porter and his wife Linda in New York in 1931, when Howard was in the Ziegfeld Follies. She eventually moved to Los Angeles with her husband agent Charlie Feldman, and the Porters would stay in LA for stretches of time as Cole worked on movies. She remained close friends with the couple, and traveled to Europe with Cole after Linda's death in 1953. She documented these trips and her friendship with the couple in Travels with Cole (NY: 1991), and the Porters also appear in Howard's book Jean Howard's Hollywood (NY: 1989).

Accompanied by a letter of provenance from Jean Howard's niece, who inherited the piano.
Length 68 1/2 in.; Height: 38 in. (closed); Width: 56 1/2 in.

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