The well-known picture of King David playing a triple harp, by Italian painter, architect and harp-builder Domenico Zampieri (1581-1641). You can click on the image to get a bigger picture. The colour in the larger image isn’t quite as good, but it does show more detail, including a bit more of the top of the painting, and you can see the strings on the harp more clearly.
A number of harp-makers have made replicas based on this painting. Since Zampieri was himself a harp-builder, one might assume that the harp is accurately represented. However, having King David play a triple harp of this sort is, according to Roslyn Blyn-Ladrew, “an anachronistic error by Zampieri of over 2000 years”. You can see Ms. Blyn-Ladrew’s full article here.
Hi CR – sorry for not getting back to you sooner. As you can see, the Harp Blog was sleeping through most of April. It’s awake now! I’ve made a point on this blog of only putting up pictures by artists who are long dead, and so will hopefully not mind. All the pictures were found on other sites that didn’t indicate the pictures were copyrighted. I don’t think it’s a problem if you just want to use them in your blog. I think it would only become an issue if you wanted to make money off it somehow.
Is this picture copyrighted? I’d like to use it on a blog of my own…
Check out the painting in the National gallery in Dublin of a harper playing a low-headed Irish harp.
Also, there is a stained glass harper in a church in Victoria, BC playing a Baroque harp. Very large, in fact.
Peter