Woman in Gold

Woman in Gold
 
Another of my musical boxes – thanks Dennis. 

 

This is the second Gustave Klimt painting that I have used to decorate a box.  The picture called Woman in Gold is of Adele Bloch-Bauer and was painted by Klimt in 1907, another of his masterpieces.  In 2007 it was sold in New York for a record US$135 million. The highest sum ever paid for a painting.

The painting along with four other Klimt paintings had been owned by the Bloch-Bauer family when they were seized by the Nazis during WWII. For years the picture had been the subject of a restitution battle between Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, and the niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer, and the Austrian government who had 'recovered' the paintings after WWII.
The story of this legal battle between Maria Altmann and the Austrian government, was made into the film 'Woman in Gold' staring Helen Mirren.  Enough history ........

So  and extended 'Woman in Gold' was going to form the lid. 

The one-off marquetry picture uses laminated shell sheet for the her gown, with inlays of gold leaf, and coloured veneer. The central part of the gown is made up from coloured veneers. Her jewellery is made up from twisted brass wire in various combinations, some gold flakes, and her neck collar has four nose stud 'jewels'!!
The back of the seat has a combination of micro mosaic marquetry, a range of different shell 'dots', brass drop earrings, small oyster veneers, and other brass jewellery findings. 

 

The sides and back of the box are decorated with a parquetry pattern. 

I have made quite a few boxes over the years that have included a musical movement, but these just had a movement incorporated into an otherwise ‘normal’ box. But, I had never made a 'full blown' music box, where the emphasis was on the sound it created and its quality, with its storage potential being secondary. 

My idea with this box was to try and amplify the sound of the movement as much as possible without resorting to electronics.  A lot interesting internet searches for patent musical boxes going back to the late 1800’s, and early 1900's,  provided me with quite a few ideas. 

1.      Attaching the movement to a sound board, or multiple sound boards. 

2.      Fixing it to a resonator box, like a loudspeaker enclosure.

3.      Incorporating some ‘tuned ports’ to further amplify different frequencies. 

 

Essentially the box ended up a very simple construction with a sit-on-top lid. It enclosed a lot of empty space, which was occupied by two resonator boxes and four sound boards.   

All these sound boards used guitar quality spruce and are inter-connected and tensioned with carbon fibre rods, similar to the sound bar/post in a violin.   My hope was that these rods would help to transmit the sound from one board to the next, and amplifying it along the way.

Above - The top sound board to which the movement is bolted using long bolts inside carbon fibre rods, to brace it against the next sound board.

Above - The next sound board, or the bottom of the first resonator box, with the carbon fibre baceing attached.  

Above - The bottom and largest sound board incorporates a 'dobro' guitar resonator cone, found on ‘cigar box’ guitars. It also has some bracing struts as on a guitar.  It is securly fixed in place with many screws!

Below the dobro in the space at the bottom of the box, is a stepped baffle board to enhance different resonances/frequencies, in a similar way to the use of tuned ports on loudspeakers.
 

The driving force for the music was a 72 note Sankyo movement that plays 3 sequential excerpts from Bach's ‘Bradenburg Concerto’. 

When left running this gives one long tune rather than three different ones usually found on these movements.  And yes the numerous sound boards etc did amplify the sound, significantly so!  By far the best of the six musical boxes I've made.

I've never tried  Sankyo's 100 note movement, essentially two 50 notes movements connected by a common drive shaft.  One day - but they are exspensive!!

For storage the interior of the box has three small lift out trays with compartments underneath - quite simple compared to 'Klimt on a Box'.

Having made the box, what I didn't like was that with the hinged lid open in the usual way, the marquetry 'Woman in Gold' wasn’t seen.   So, I worked out a secondary hinge mechanism, using barrel hinges and incorporating some rare-earth magnets, that enables the lid to fold back on its self so displaying the marquetry.  The lid is attached to a two piece sub-frame, which is joined together using a barrel hinge at both sides.

This enables the sub-frame to fold back on itself. The rear portion of this sub-frame is then hinged to the main box in the normal way - see below, this time with Hawthone's Neat hinges. Only the front portion of the sub frame is actually glued to the lid. The rear part of the sub-frame is held against the rear of the lid by a rare earth magnets.

 
One magnet in each arm of the sub-frame which are attracted to magnets embedded in the lid. Which you can see above. So, with the magnets attracted the whole lid opens and closes as it would normally. The magnets are around 10mm diameter so their holding power is quite substantial.  However, 'break' the magnets attraction and the sub frame can now fold back onto its self, so that the top of the lid is visible - quite a neat idea I thought!! 

 

 
The grill at the bottom of box hides the baffel board space and is covered with a latice work backed with loudspeaker cloth. 

Woman in Gold was a very interesting digression from 'normal' wood work.  
 
Thanks for looking - hope you like her!!