Archive

More detailed information about stringed instruments and the history of violin making.

Patrick Robin – a master of teaching and the craft

The Classical violin bow (The violin bow, part II)

Markneukirchen: violin making in “German Cremona”

Jan Špidlen: Art, innovation – and sport

James Tubbs: the classic name in English bow making

Bernard Millant and Le Canu-Millant, Paris: lutherie and expertise

Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers

French 1/2 violin. Mirecourt approx. 1900

This French 1/2 violin is a beautiful and rare childrens viola after a well-proven Stradivari model, with a body length of 31.3 cm that features sound properties appreciated by many jung musicians. The reddish-brown varnish is very transparent and shining, and as the characteristically shaped scroll it expresses the old 1/2 violin´s provenance from the well-known violin making town of Mirecourt in the Vosges mountains, where it was presumably built in the workshops of Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy (J.T.L.), approx. 1900. The attractive mild flaming of the two-piece back determines the character of the instrument, that is completed by interesting traces of use on the table. They indicate that the 1/2 violin was played by good young musicians who knew the higher ranges very well. The violin, which is in ecellent undamaged condition, was worked over thoroughly in our atelier and is offered ready to play, a special recommendation for its warm, dark, resonant and deep sound.