All the harps in the Museo dell’Arpa Victor Salvi collection have been thoroughly restored the aim being to restore them as far as possible to their original condition. This decision has two important consequences. The first is that the no attempt is made to restore the harp to a playable condition. That is to say that a harp that is too badly damaged or too fragile to be played is given a conservative restoration but will not be subjected to heavy restoration so that it can be played at all costs. Work to stabilise the instrument structurally would have to be so drastic as to destroy the quality of its sound and you would end up with a hybrid instrument, neither the original nor a modern one. Secondly previous restoration work must be removed. Usually this is aimed at restoring the functionality of the harp. Sometimes you find structural elements that have been added later, for example metal brackets to reinforce the sound box, pieces of wood beneath the soundboard to strengthen it, screws holding the base to the column instead of the cantilever to the column. In all these cases the elements that have been added are removed.

The restoration of an antique harp is performed in three stages. Firstly the restoration of the body of the instrument that is all the wooden structural parts that usually need to be cleaned and strengthened. The second phase consists in restoring the mechanical parts that must be removed, cleaned, oiled and reassembled. The third stage involves the decoration of the instrument. Very often it is necessary to add the missing parts especially where there is sculpture or parts in relief in moulded gesso, a material similar to plaster, that is very common in nineteenth century harps, for example the one made by Domeny, collection number SC0720: some parts have been restored and then it was also necessary to add parts of missing gold leaf decoration.

Restoration also provides an opportunity to study how the harps were built, to measure the thickness of wood used, for example, or to analyse the working of the mechanisms. A typical case was that of the Cousineau harp, collection number SC0730, whose mechanism is very complex.

The restoration workshop is an extremely important part of the work of the Museo dell’Arpa Victor Salvi and is open to any body or private individual who is thinking about having their own antique harp restored