Pedal Harp
1780 - 1785 (Made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
By about 1780 Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) had helped create a vogue for the harp in France, as she was a keen player. This instrument is a single-action pedal-harp, fitted a hook-like device called the crochet, which raises the pitch of the string by one semi-tone, when activated by a pedal. It is also decorated with fashionable chinoiserie motifs. This harp is signed 'Wolter' of Porte St Denis, Paris, who may have been the same person as Jean-Matthias Wolters (active 1740-1793).
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | planed, japanned, painted and gilded wood (maple?) body; pine soundboard |
| Brief description | Pedal harp, japanned wood, decorated with chinoiseries by Jean-Mathias Wolters (active 1740 - 1785), Paris, French, 1780-85. |
| Physical description | 'Back of seven ribs japanned black. Pine belly decorated with chinoiserie figures (of the late eighteenth-century variant with naturalistic faces of the kind also to be seen at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and elsewhere) and garlands. Pillar of oval section with mouldings and termination in a carved bracket, somewhat as 16/9 [Pedal-harp by Renault & Chatelain, Paris, 1781-1797, Museum no. 469-1897]. The neck and scroll are apparently carved by the same hand as those of the Nadermann and Renault & Chatelain harps (16/5, 16/6, 16/9) [Museum nos. 425-1884, 4449-1858, 469-1897]; the scroll gilt, the rest japanned black and decorated with small-scale chinoiserie subjects in the common fantastic seventeenth-eighteenth century tradition. Single action by crochettes'. Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-Keyboard Instruments. (London, 1978), p. 81. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions | Wolter Porte St Denis à Paris (Inscription painted in black at the top of the soundboard. Both Baines and Vannes (c.f.Dictionnaire Universel des Luthiers (Brussels, 1951)) suggest that this "Wolter" could be the same as Jean-Mathias Wolters (active 1740 - 1785))
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| Gallery label |
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| Credit line | Bequeathed by Captain H.B. Murray |
| Object history | This instrument was bequeathed to the Museum in 1911 by Captain H.B.Murray. |
| Production | The instrument is signed 'Wolter' but it is probably an alternative spelling to 'Wouter', 'Woltaier' or Jean-Mathias Wolters, a luthier active from about 1740 until 1785. |
| Summary | By about 1780 Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) had helped create a vogue for the harp in France, as she was a keen player. This instrument is a single-action pedal-harp, fitted a hook-like device called the crochet, which raises the pitch of the string by one semi-tone, when activated by a pedal. It is also decorated with fashionable chinoiserie motifs. This harp is signed 'Wolter' of Porte St Denis, Paris, who may have been the same person as Jean-Matthias Wolters (active 1740-1793). |
| Bibliographic reference | Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments. (London, 1998), p. 81. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | W.46-1911 |
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| Record created | April 14, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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