My ex-wife had an Autoharp which was designed exclusively for lap or table-top playing. It was rectangular and was permanently enclosed in the back half of an ugly molded beige thermoplastic case. You couldn't have played it "huggy" style if you'd wanted to. To play it, you just plopped it on the table and unlatched and removed the case top. When oriented for normal strumming (with the bass strings closest to your body), the chord bars were on the left. That's the reverse of most Autoharps. The advantage of that arrangement for lap or table-top playing was that it eliminated the need to play "cross-handed".

I imagine it was made with educators in mind, not "real" Autoharp players, but it worked pretty well. If only it hadn't been so damned ugly...