Classical Instrument Art Print – Harmonium, The Breathing Box Unstacked

Provenance

'Harmonium' is drawn as a stack of layers pulled apart in the air: a carved lid, the keyboard, the reed board and, at the base, the wooden box with its folds of bellows. It is one sheet in a sketchbook-like series on Indian classical instruments, a study of how a familiar instrument is built from its parts, with thin dashed guide lines showing where each layer sits.

The pierced wooden lid, cut in a radiating floral lattice, hangs at the top above a keyboard of ivory-toned and black keys, with a row of brass reed plates below it. At the bottom sits a wooden case with brass corner pieces, a carrying handle and a row of round brass knobs on its front, with the folded bellows beside it. Small studies fill the page: a brass-handled panel with a slim strip, a fan of fine bristles set in a wooden block, and a cluster of keys drawn as stacked blocks. Dashed lines link each layer to the next.

Lacquered orange-red timber, glowing brass and the black and cream of the keys form the palette, set on warm cream with heavy blue and red pencil hatching at the edges. The hatching moves in many directions at once, giving the page the energetic, exploratory feel of a working sketch. That surface belongs to the artwork as drawn; the piece you receive is a print on canvas cloth, made to order.