This Erard grand piano was commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1856 and was intended as a showpiece to form part of the furnishings of the state rooms. The gilded case is decorated in the French early 18^th century style with cherubs and singeries – comical scenes involving monkeys playing musical instruments and making mischief. Queen Victoria owned a piano decorated in a similar manner almost twenty years earlier. In her diary of 5 March 1839, she wrote, ‘Lord Melbourne admired the new painted piano I have in the drawing-room, and said, ‘I like those monkeys on it.’’