Striking 180-Year-Old Grecian Harp Worth Four Figures | Antiques Roadshow

It was left to me by my grandad some years ago when he died. There was a story that it used to belong to Edward Algar at some point, but unfortunately we've never been able to prove that. But that's just a family story. Well, that's an interesting connection. Do you know when it dates from? No, not really. I've never had it dated. The date is around 1835, 1840, so early Victorian times, and harps of this date tend to be of two styles, either Grecian or Gothic. And if we look at this one, we can see that it's very much in the Grecian style. You have here these carved gesso figures of the winged ladies going down to the fluted column and the typical Grecian lyre below, so very much in the Greek style. And over here you have the swell pedal which you press and it opens the four apertures here, which is if you want to play the harp fortissimo, so if you want to make the sound that much louder. Well, harps were extremely popular in the late 18th and early 19th century, not only in this country but also abroad. Marie Antoinette was quite a harpist and she popularised it in France. The Gothic harps tended to be more for the concerts perhaps, the concert halls and the professional musicians, whereas ones like this, the Grecian harps, were more perhaps for family playing and if you had a musical soiree in your Victorian home, someone would probably be playing the harp. I particularly like the decoration here, the way that it's painted red and I think all the paint is original and you've got the foliate decoration and it's a very striking example of a harp. Do you have it on display anywhere or not? We keep it in the dining room where it's nice and cool and out of the direct light really. Have you ever thought about having it restored or not? It's something that we thought about but my granddad used to say that he'd had somebody around to look at it and they said that it couldn't be restrung because it wouldn't be able to cope. I think that's right, I think it would be very difficult to restring it properly and I think it should be enjoyed as a decorative object rather than a musical instrument per se. What about value? I have no idea. Well, I would expect it to fetch in the region of perhaps £1,500 at auction. The Cry of Love by Jimi Hendrix, as you know, if it was an album because on this side it's Jimi Hendrix and so I see on this side it is the very best of Burt Camford which is very strange and I don't know whether you know that the actual album of Jimi Hendrix's Cry of Love in a pressed red record, there are only two in the world and I'm just going to sort of let you down slightly lightly in that if it had been the red one of both Hendrix's we'd be talking about over £1,000. The fact that you only have one side Hendrix, the other side Burt Camford we're talking about between £500 and £700 at auction. Right. And it's unheard of. As far as I know it's the only one. Unique.