Paul Émile Miquel: fine French violin bow, c.1900 (certificate by J.-F. Raffin)

This French violin bow by Paul Émile Miquel is the work of an interesting master whose oeuvre represents modern French bow making at the turn of the twentieth century; his comparatively small but select body of work ranks amongst the rarities of his epoch. A certificate issued by the world-renowned expert J. F. Raffin included with this Paul Émile Miquel bow dates the piece back to circa 1900, a period in which Miquel hat long since become a skilled master of his art. During this mature phase of his work, he preferred to craft silver-mounted bows such as the one featured here; it interprets the influential template of the Bazin school, as opposed to the models of Peccatte and Vuillaume which he had focused on earlier. This re-orientation of his work coincided with his move from his home city of Mirecourt to Nancy, where he quickly made such a good name for himself with his repair work that it appears he had very little time to dedicate to making new bows. His entrepreneurial success can thus be regarded as a loss for the music world, as is evident in this bow of 74.1 cm and 61.1 g which is exemplary with a weight distribution of striking precision; the balance point lies at 24.78 cm. The finely crafted head and the outstanding silver mounting reflect the high quality of this Paul Émile Miquel bow at a single glance and yet are not gaudy; they express an aesthetic promise that the bow’s large, typically French and pleasantly warm sound fully honours.