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Scan 157
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 143. See the scan on archive.org.
1appearance would lead one to anticipate better results from them than they actually yield. Their dimensions and thicknesses greatly vary. The alcoholic varnish is of a dull yellow, hard and dry, and the same authority says that when the bow is drawn across the strings the effect is very disappointing. A very good maker, called François Vaillant, distinguished himself in Paris by sometimes making better instruments than Boquay, who was his contemporary. That is not, of course, great praise, all the French makers already named being of second-rate order. A ticket of Vaillant is found dated 1738. Nezot and Plumerel are other two makers, of whom little is known but their dates, viz., about 1740.
3Prior, however, to all these makers, a great name in French violin industry appears, although its first bearers cannot claim any higher place, if so high, in the art, for it was not until considerably later that one member of the family raised it above the general level of mediocrity which, down to his time, prevailed. It may, however, be as well to refer to it now, instead of adhering to more strict chronological order. In 1696 the distinguished name of Lupot appears. The first of this family was a Jean Lupot, in Mirecourt, who had a son, Laurent, born there in 1696, and who became a violin maker like his father; he was also, it seems, a schoolmaster at Plombières in 1747, and in 1751 he left that town for Lunéville, where he resumed the business of fiddle-making, and remained until 1756. In 1762 he is found in Orléans, still in the same business, and he then disappears. He had a son, François Lupot, born at Plombières in 1736, who began work with his father at
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