#8378 Cornet Gold Plated

# 8378 at the Metropolitian Museum of Art, New York

Karl Moritz Missenharter Cornet, ca. 1900. New York, United States. Brass, gold plate. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Schonberger Family Foundation Gift, 2013

This lavishly embellished cornet evinces the instrument's position as the most popular brass instrument of virtuoso soloists and band leaders throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The cornet first appeared in Paris in the 1820s and incorporated valves, invented only a few years earlier, into its design. This enabled the instrument to be played chromatically and with a strong, even tone throughout its entire range—a marked contrast to the natural trumpets and keyed bugles in use at the time.