My Antique Erard on a movie set

[carl-swanson]

I had a fun gig recently. I got a call from a set designer for Columbia pictures, and she needed an antique harp. Seems Columbia is making a new version of Little Women(to be released on Christmas day a year from now), and they were putting together a music room set, and did I have an appropriate harp. I said I had an 1892 Erard, and while it was made later than the time period of the movie, that design( Gothic model) existed at the time of the story. They were using a huge mansion out in the country for the interiors, so I had to deliver the harp there, then pick it up a week later. I took the picture when I went back to pick up the harp. The shooting was done, but the sets were still in place. So hopefully my Erard will be seen sharing the space with Meryl Streep, Timothy Chalamet, Laura Dern, among others, unless it ends up on the cutting room floor!

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[carl-swanson]

I should add that the initial request was to use it for an outdoor wedding scene, which I was very reluctant to agree to. Had they stuck with that plan, then I would have insisted on being on set the entire time they had it. But the plan was changed and instead the harp is just decoration in the music room.

[evolene_t]

Stunning!
Looking forward to that film, do keep us informed when it comes out 🙂

It’s great that you had a historically-accurate harp to lend as well. That harp looks right at home in this setting.

[Leeann ElishaJi]

nice!!

[goatberryfarm2010]

What a lovely harp & manor house! I’ll see if we can get the DVD & drool over the harp & it’s setting!

[carl-swanson]

The house is in central Massachusetts and was built in 1902. They are using a much older house for the exteriors, but are using the three main rooms on the ground floor of this house for the interiors. Here’s another picture. This is the room next to the ‘music room.’ Absolutely everything in this room was brought in for the shoot. They had brought in enough things(furniture, paintings, lighting fixtures, drapes, etc.) to furnish 4 big houses. The house is currently for sale, for 5 million dollars, which frankly is a bargain given its size and all the property that goes with it.

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[Jerusha Amado]

The harp looks beautiful in that setting! I hope that they use your footage for the movie!

[Alison]

Well I wish they hadn’t stuck that music stand with an open book in front of it. You were brave to leave it with them.

[Gretchen Cover]

Cool! Great photo. Thanks for sharing the news.

[Biagio]

That’s wonderful Carl, thank you so much for sharing – not only the picture but the story and implicit advice about harp care on set. It’s also great that the prop master wanted a period harp…

In The Winter King, a TV series about Henry VII, there is what appears to be a Clark or Morley in one scene. Would that have been similar to the Welsh harps of the period (late 1400s)?

Biagio

[Tacye]

Biagio, a Morley or Clark is not at all accurate for the 15th century!

[Biagio]

Thank you Tacye; I’ve wondered but never got around to researching it. Sometimes it is easier to just ask those who know LOL.

[carl-swanson]

It’s funny how movies can mess up the period stuff. In Gone with the Wind, in the burning of Atlanta sequence, there is a wagon in one scene loaded with furniture, and a Lyon & Healy style 15 harp! Those were not around until the early 1900’s.

[Biagio]

Harp sightings are fun and it’s almost as much fun to try identifying them! An L&H appears in “Sleepless in Seattle” and in the movie made of John Le Carres “Smiley’s People”; there’s another harp I can’t identify in one of the Lovejoy mysteries.

[carl-swanson]

One of my Swanson Empire harps appears in Django Unchained by Quinten Tarantino.

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