This Hindsberg piano was the first one purchased by legendary comedian Victor Borge. Borge purchased the piano in the late 1920s, and he used it in Denmark until he moved it to St. Croix. The piano remained at his holiday house until Hurricane Hugo ravaged the island in 1989. The piano was destroyed but Victor Borge had it restored before donating it to the museum in 1994. The museum later made the piano playable again.

Victor Borge (real name Børge Rosenbaum) was a Danish musician and comedian trained as a pianist; he began performing musical comedy in 1933 and quickly became a well-known performer in Denmark. Borge, who was Jewish, fled the Nazis in 1940, and later that year found passage to the U.S. Soon after arriving in the U.S. Borge became a guest on Bing Crosby’s Kraft Music Hall where his success made him a regular guest. He received his American citizenship in 1948. Later he became renowned for his show Comedy in Music which holds the record for the longest one-man show on Broadway.

Victor Borge Piano
Copenhagen, Denmark 
Ca. 1926
Wood, Iron, Ivory
Gift of Victor Borge
UER.2009.002.001