Help Identify my grandfather's old harp 🙂

[Janis Cortese]

I’ve mentioned a bit in another thread that my grandfather (along with others on that side of the family) was a musician, a harpist. My cousin still has his very old harp in her home and is currently studying harp herself. It’s been in the family forever, but we’re trying to figure out what kind of harp it is. I’ve linked to a few pictures here, and I’m hoping that someone on the forum can help us solve this mystery.

It’s a single-action harp with a straight soundboard. There doesn’t seem to be any flowery engraving anywhere on it that indicates what make it is, although it carries a label from an old Philadelphia music and instrument store. The top of the column terminates in what appears to be a vaguely Erard ram’s-head style, but it’s not exactly like the other ram’s head columns I’ve seen. Without that and the fairly clear engraving that I’ve seen on other Erards, I hesitate to conclude that it’s an Erard. It may be something that was built in this particular Philadelphia maker’s shop and was created to look somewhat Erard-like.

Anyway, if anyone has any input into this harp, both my cousin and I would very much appreciate if you could share it. Thanks for looking!

The entire harp — I don’t know how many strings it has.

A close-up of the column crown — Not quite like the other ram’s heads I’ve seen.

A close-up of the base — The seahorses/unicorns are fantastic!

The neck and knee

The label — Michael Votta is a name that comes up in Philadelphia music, but as a clarinetist. Google was ponderously unhelpful in chasing down anyone of that name connected with harps or violins.

Again, thanks so much for taking a look and helping us with this. 🙂 If it helps with the history, our grandfather was born in 1895, and his father — another musician and possibly a harpist himself — came to the US in 1891 from one of the harp-heavy towns in Italy, Marsicovetere. Apparently, that town and Viggiano pretty much flooded the world with harpists in the late 1800s.

[Bonnie Shaljean]

This is the second time in two days I’ve recommended this, but try asking this very interesting question in the Yahoo group AntiquePedalHarps (though you have to join in order to be able to post). This list is pretty quiet, but they’re a knowledgeable bunch:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/AntiquePedalHarps/info

I would love to know the answers and am sorry I can’t help more –

[Janis Cortese]

Thanks, Bonnie. I’ve joined the list and written to them; hopefully I’ll have more information to share with my cousin soon. 🙂

[Janis Cortese]

Heard back from a few people on the Yahoo list, and their information makes sense to me. Apparently, there were many unknown makers throughout Europe back in the early 1800s, and many of the harps they made ended up finding their way second- and third-hand to jobbing harpists in the late 1800s and early 20th century. One fellow did feel that it was probably French in origin since it was mimicking a French harp (the Erard ram’s head), and recommended looking inside the soundbox on the back side of the soundboard to see if anything had been written there, perhaps a name or date. It was probably already around a century old when it was sold in Philadelphia as a used instrument.

This actually answered a question that I hadn’t really articulated to myself, which was how on Earth a family of southern Italian peasant sharecroppers had managed to obtain what was always a crazy-expensive, aristocratic instrument — and how so many such people had managed it. Harps have always been ridiculously expensive; how had poor jobbing musicians gotten their hands on them to the point where sharecropper-harpists were such a major Italian export in the 1800s?

Turns out that while everyone knows about gilded Erards and whatnot, there were and are many more harps from unknown makers all throughout Europe, and they just got handed down over and over. I like the idea that the pedal harp has a proletarian history in Europe as well, especially in Italy, and I’d like to learn more about that side of the instrument.

So there’s the mystery most likely solved: Unknown maker, probably French, early 1800s (amazing!), might be more clues inside the soundbox.

[jennifer-buehler]

What a cool story! Thanks for sharing!

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