Words Edel Cassidy
The visual arts have been influenced by music and musical instruments as far back as we’ve been able to trace them, and the unique aesthetic beauty of the harp has been particularly popular. As the oldest known musical instrument, the harp holds a unique position in the history of musical culture. The earliest evidence of the harp is found c. 2500 BC in ancient Egypt, with harpists depicted on wall paintings. There have also been archaeological finds of the instruments themselves. These ancient harps were shaped like bows and had very few strings. As they did not have a forepillar or column, they could not support a lot of string tension.
The harp features regularly in the Bible as the musical instrument of choice played in the worship of God, and it is pictured in countless religious manuscripts. Artistic depictions of the harp with a straight column appeared in medieval Western Europe. The harp is particularly associated with Ireland, where it features in manuscripts and on Christian stone crosses dating back to the eighth century.
In nineteenth-century England, upper-class women were often portrayed playing the harp. At that time, women were expected to be accomplished at playing a musical instrument, and the presence of a harp in a portrait was thought to afford a young lady particular distinction.
Here is just a small selection of beautiful artworks depicting the harp through the ages.
The End of The Song, c. 1902, Edmund Leighton
Private Collection
Oil on canvas
British Pre-Raphaelite artist Edmund Blair Leighton (1852–1922) produced highly detailed and beautifully decorated historical paintings. Here he depicts one of the world’s greatest legends, the tragic tale of the forbidden but undying love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Isolde.
The young knight accompanies the princess from Ireland to Cornwall where she is to become the bride of his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. But Tristan and Isolde fall in love with each other, and there are tragic consequences.
In this painting, Tristan, a gifted harpist, has just serenaded his beloved Isolde with a song of love. In the background, unseen to them both, is King Mark who strokes his beard as he tries to decide what to do about this turn of events.
The Harp Lesson, 1791, Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas
Oil on canvas
In 1791, just two years after the French Revolution began, Paris experienced a period of temporary calm, which allowed the annual Paris Salon exhibition to take place that year. It was there that Giroust’s painting was first shown. Fourteen-year-old Adélaïde d’Orléans, daughter of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, is having a lesson with her governess Madame de Genlis, while her English teacher, Pamela Syms, looks on. The painting caused quite a sensation, especially when the three ladies portrayed visited the Salon, all three sporting Phrygian bonnets, which were a symbol of the revolution.
The following year, Adélaïde went into exile. Her father was guillotined in 1793 during the Reign of Terror, despite being sympathetic with the revolutionaries.
Pamela married the Irish aristocrat-turned-revolutionary Lord Edward FitzGerald and they settled at his home in Kildare. There was speculation that she was the product of a relationship between Madame de Genlis and the Duke of Orléans.
The artist, Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust (1753–1817), trained in the Paris studio of the leading neoclassical painter Joseph Marie Vien. He then studied in Rome, where he acquired a reputation as a history painter. He became the official painter of the Court of Orléans in 1791. The French Revolution brought an end to his career and he retired to the countryside where he lived in relative obscurity.
Carolan, The Irish Bard, 1844, James Christopher Timbrell
Private collection
Oil on canvas
Dublin painter and sculptor James Christopher Timbrell (1807–1850) worked in London for most of his career, exhibiting at the Royal Academy throughout the 1840s; Carolan, The Irish Bard was shown in 1844. It depicts the great Irish harper-composer Turlough O’Carolan (1670–1738).
O’Carolan’s father was employed by the MacDermott Roe family at Alderford House, County Roscommon. Mrs Mary Fitzgerald McDermott Roe took an interest in Turlough and saw to it that he was educated. When he was permanently blinded by smallpox, she arranged for him to be trained on the Irish harp. She also provided him with a horse, a guide and funds to begin his career as a roving harper. For almost fifty years he travelled around Ireland, playing in the homes of wealthy patrons, often as their honoured guest.
O’Carolan’s influence on Irish music is incalculable and his iconic musical legacy endures. The survival of his work can be credited to Belfast musicologist Edward Bunting (1773–1843), who collected the pieces and notated them. Oliver Goldsmith’s tribute, ‘The History of Carolan, the Last Irish Bard’, was published in the British Magazine in July 1760. Ludwig van Beethoven arranged some of O’Carolan’s music for A Select Collection of Original Irish Airs, published in 1814. George Thomson, a Scottish music publisher and folk-song collector, had engaged Beethoven to compose piano accompaniments for the melodies. O’Carolan’s most famous composition, O’Carolan’s Concerto, was played by the 1st Battalion Irish Guards during the Trooping the Colour ceremony in 2005. There are several recordings of his compositions by some of Ireland’s most prominent musicians.
The Harp of Erin, 1867, Thomas Buchanan Read
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio
Oil on canvas
American poet, painter and sculptor Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872) was descended from both Scots and Irish emigrants. He spent most of his adult life in Italy, where he established himself as one of the world’s leading artistic and literary voices. His subject matter was often passionately patriotic and idealistic. He was briefly associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement in his later years when he painted dreamy, nostalgic works.
In this painting, Erin, the female personification of Ireland, plays the harp despite the rising waves and stormy seas that surround her. She is chained to a rock, symbolic of her imprisonment under English rule. Although her situation seems desperate amid the storm, a bright light shines, indicating hope for her future and her yearning for liberation.
Mural of a blind musician playing a harp, from the tomb of the ancient Egyptian scribe, Nakht, c. 1422–1411 BC
Based on depictions found in the tombs of the nobles and royalty, it is believed that musical culture played an important role in society in ancient Egypt. Interestingly, the drawings that we can see today show the harp being played mostly by men.
The tomb of Nakht is located in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor. Nakht was a scribe and astronomer and held the title ‘Astronomer of Amun’.
This detail of a blind harpist is from a painting of the funereal banquet on the wall of the tomb. Harpists were often depicted as blind; the blindness of the subject here is indicated by a curved line where the eye should be instead of a more realistic-shaped eye.
Self-Portrait with a Harp, 1791, Rose Adélaïde Ducreux
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Oil on canvas
French painter and musician Rose Adélaïde Ducreux (1761–1802) was the daughter of portraitist Joseph Ducreux (1735–1802), and learned to paint in her father’s studio.
In 1791, father and daughter made their joint debut at the annual Paris Salon exhibition. It was the first year that Académie membership was not a prerequisite for participation (the Académie Française was suppressed following the French Revolution). This life-size self-portrait was one of the two paintings that Rose displayed.
Rose is not playing the harp but tuning it – she holds the tuning key in her right hand. The harp and sheet music are depicted with almost photographic precision, obviously painted by someone intimately familiar with the instrument. The carved scroll and fluted column resemble the harps designed by the Parisian harp-makers Cousineau Père et Fils.
La Ghirlandata, 1873, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Guildhall Art Gallery, London
Oil on canvas
In a letter to his mother of September 1873, Rossetti wrote: ‘I am now putting the last touches to the picture I began from Miss Wilding when you were here. It has turned out about my best, I think.’ The artist was referring to La Ghirlandata, which depicts a woman playing the harp, surrounded by foliage with two angels peering through.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) was a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of rebellious young artists formed in 1848 with the aim of creating art that was true to nature and expressed genuine ideas. They rejected the popular artistic teachings of the time, driven by, as Oscar Wilde put it, ‘three things the English public never forgives: youth, power and enthusiasm’.
Musical instruments figure prominently in Rossetti’s work and it is clear that he had an actual harp to paint from, as confirmed in a letter of August 1873 to art dealer Charles Augustus Howell: ‘a picture can be made on the strength of a good thing of the kind. Or properties such as the harp you got me, without which I should never have painted this Ghirlandata.’
Saul and David, 1655, Rembrandt van Rijn
The Mauritshuis, The Hague
Oil on canvas
‘The Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord was terrifying him.’ (1 Samuel 16:14).
Whenever the evil spirit troubled Saul, he would summon the warrior David, who was also a skilled harpist, and the beautiful melodies he produced drove the evil spirit away.
David has just defeated Goliath and the Philistines, and Saul fears that he might take his position as king. Clearly moved by David’s harp playing, he dries his left eye with a curtain. However, his anger and envy of David’s growing popularity can be seen in his other eye. He also holds a spear, which he is about to throw at David in a fit of jealous rage.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) was renowned for his outstanding ability to portray deep human emotions, and this painting, which is considered one of his great masterpieces, exquisitely depicts the pain, suffering and anguish of the old king.
The painting itself has an intriguing history. It is thought that the top right of the painting got damaged and, in the nineteenth century, the owner removed it and cut up the remainder to make two separate paintings, one showing Saul and the other, David. The pieces were later sutured back together. Its attribution has been questioned in the past, but it was confirmed to be an authentic Rembrandt by an international team of experts in 2015.
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