Jean Baptiste Vuillaume was without doubt the most successful violin maker of the 19th century. In fact, in purely commercial terms, he was probably the greatest luthier in history, without exception of Stradivari. Rarely does such consummate craftsmanship reside in the same character as determined ambition, intelligence, and entrepreneurial skill. With a traditional and rare training in violin making at Mirecourt, he built a virtual empire in Paris in the second half of the century, and his influence can still be easily seen and felt in all aspects of the craft and the instrument trade. bowstring.

He was born in Mirecourt in 1798, a small town in the Vosges that had long focused on instrument making. His father, Claude-Francois, was rather undistinguished as a violin maker, but the family had been active in the craft since the early 17th century. Jean-Baptiste showed his ambition from the beginning and, having apprenticed with his father, he went to the capital in 1818, where he found work with Francois Chanot. Chanot was an experimenter: one of the first creators to attempt to apply scientifically informed acoustic principles to his work, he surely stimulated Vuillaume’s inquisitive and imaginative mind during the first three years of the young luthier’s career in Paris. In 1821, Vuillaume moved into the workshop of Nicolas Antoine Lete, a fellow native of Mirecourt, where he remained, apparently as a partner, until 1825.

Meanwhile, Vuillaume had been making his own instruments and refining his Mirecourt style to match the innovations of the great Nicolas Lupot. Lupot was at the time the best creator of the Paris school, responsible for reestablishing classic Stradivari principles, backed by rigorous craftsmanship and an academic approach to detail and precision. All of these ideas provided the environment in which Vuillaume would flourish and succeed. Lupot died in 1824, leaving no heirs to his business other than his apprentice Charles Francois Gand.

Beginning in 1823, Vuillaume began labeling his own work, which consisted of evenly varnished dark red instruments in the style of Lupot. He was also heavily involved in making bows, and from 1823 he employed Persois to provide bows for his instruments. Always prolific, like others trained at Mirecourt, by 1828 he had made about a hundred violins and was ready to leave Lete’s shop. He set up his own business at 46 Rue des Petits-Champs, right in the heart of the city in what is the second arrondissement, behind the Tuileries Gardens.

A significant advance came around 1827, when it began to manufacture instruments with an aged finish in imitation of the great cremonese instruments that were rapidly increasing in value and appreciation. The same idea had occurred to the Fendt family working in London around this time, where the market for authentic Cremonese instruments was developing just as quickly.

Vuillaume quickly mastered the techniques to give his instruments an aged appearance, with darkened wood and weathered varnish, setting the standard in this for many other Parisian makers. Business flourished and he expanded his workshop by hiring assistants, mostly highly skilled artisans from Mirecourt, including Hippolyte Silvestre and Honore Derazey, both to become major creators in their own right.

As he examined the original instruments for reproduction, Vuillaume’s eye as a connoisseur developed as well, and the business as a skilled dealer in antique instruments brought more custom to his Paris shop. By 1850, his business was on a truly international level. and Charles Adolphe Maucotel had become the foreman of his workshop.

Vuillaume was responsible for making many of the best bows to come out of Paris at this time. He paid great attention to the bow and its development, benefiting greatly from the presence of Francois Tourte, ‘the Stradivari of the bow’, who was still active when Vuillaume started his activity. Vuillaume employed many of the great names in French bow making, beginning with Persois in 1823, through Dominique Peccatte and Pierre Simon, who was Vuillaume’s chief archer until 1846.

Throughout this period, Vuillaume worked on imaginative ways to improve production and has a particular reputation as an innovator, although few of his ideas have stood the test of time. The Self Rehabilitation Arch and Steel Arch are among these ingenious and well-intentioned but unfortunate ideas. He researched the history of the violin with the help of his friend, the musicologist Francois Fetis, but was overzealous in his patriotic attempts to find a role for French makers in inventing the instrument.

Vuillaume’s greatest achievement was the purchase of the Tarisio collection in 1855. Luigi Tarisio, an eccentric Italian collector who had made a name for himself among Parisian dealers at the turn of the century, died that year, and Vuillaume wasted no time or effort on get a deal with his family to buy the remaining instruments. The horde was spectacular, possibly unmatched in history, and included over a hundred of the best cremonese, as well as twenty-four exceptional Stradivaris. Among the latter was the ‘Messie’ of 1716, recognized as the largest and most original surviving instrument from Stradivari’s workshop. It is now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Vuillaume’s reputation was now unassailable, and in 1858 he moved for the last time to rue Demours Les Ternes, a little west of the old shop.

Vuillaume continued to work virtually until his death in 1875. He had no sons to continue the workshop, although his brother Nicolas-Francois (1802-1876) and his nephew Sébastien (1835-1875) were the two creators.

JBVuillaume left behind a massive legacy of fine instruments. They are divided into several categories: the first fully varnished examples from the period 1823-1827, generic imitations of Stradivari and Guarneri, close copies of specific master violins, other instruments made in various styles from Brescia and Amati, various experimental designs, and other fantastic historical replicas. . Another considerable body of work is represented by the ‘St Cecile’ instruments, these were made at Mirecourt for Stradivari and occasionally Guarneri models, and sent to Paris for varnishing, which was finished in full red-brown, ‘unused’, complete with a transfer representing Saint Cecilia on the upper part of the back. These were intended to be sold at cheaper prices and were manufactured between 1843 and 1856.

The most obvious feature of much of his work is the wear pattern imposed on the varnish on the back, which is often in the shape of an inverted ‘V’, with the edges divided into small islands of the thicker colored varnish. that contrasts with the pale gray / gold background of the wood. The varnish is of good quality and color, although a little harder than the old cremonese recipes that he set out to emulate. His imitations of the Brescian and Guarneri instruments are slightly less successful than the Stradivari copies, his strongly disciplined and technical approach never conveying the freedom of the originals. The first works bear his handwritten label. Later he had labels printed for his two addresses, and he also marked, signed and numbered the inside. Some of the early replicas carry knockoff Stradivari labels and lack the manufacturer’s signature and branding. The quality of his work is nearly impossible to replicate and has stood the test of time well. Although the vast majority of his instruments are imitations of classic Cremonese pieces, the originality of his mind and his creative genius is evident in all aspects of his career.