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Historians of the harp often cite Sébastien Erard's (1752-1831) invention of the double action in 1808-1811 as the turning point in the history of the instrument, effectively giving birth to the modern harp. This article explores the achievement of the visionary harp maker Georges Cousineau (1733-1800), who invented a double-action harp in 1782, at least twenty-six years before Erard. Until now, no example of this mysterious instrument-a harp with fourteen pedals-has ever been available for study, but we have recently discovered one such harp in a private collection. The provenance of this particular instrument makes the discovery even more significant: it once belonged to Sébastien Erard, who seems to have procured it as a kind of 'industrial espionage,' during the period in which he was working on his own double-action harp. This harp therefore sheds light on a seminal moment in instrument-making in the eighteenth century.
THE COUSINEAU FAMILY
Georges Cousineau was the son of a poor weaver in the village of Mouchamps in Western France.1 His mother, however, came from a family of instrument makers who would raise young Georges after his move to Paris, including his uncle Jean Ouvrard (d.1768) and his step-brother Salomon (Jean-Baptiste Dehaye, 1713-1767). By the age of seventeen, Cousineau was an apprentice at the harp workshop of François Lejeune (c.1722-1785), and would soon be supported by other important instrument makers in Paris, including Salomon and François Feury. Cousineau became a master artisan in 1758, and established his own workshop on the rue Bourg de Brie in the parish of Saint Séverin. In 1759, he married Madeleine-Victoire Regnault, daughter of a painter. Cousineau was an active freemason, member of the lodge Les amis de la liberté.2
By 1767 Cousineau was making single-action harps with the system of crochets. In 1773, he moved his workshop to the rue des Poulies in St. Germain d'Auxerrois where, according to a label inside a surviving instrument, he made 'harps, lyras, violins, 'cellos, double basses, violas, guitars, violas d'amore, mandolins, and citterns.'3 Several of these nonharp instruments by Cousineau survive, including a cittern, a guitar (both in the collection of the Musée de la Musique, Paris), and a violin.4 Cousineau also imported English pianos, and engraved and sold musical scores, with the help of his...