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Scan 165
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 151. See the scan on archive.org.
1sound holes are very wide in the middle. He was in the habit of branding his mark and name on the inside of the back with a red-hot punch, or some such implement, in the place usually occupied by the ticket; and the inscription, which was disposed in the form of a triangle, runs, "A la ville de Cremone" for the two sides, and "D. Nicolas Ainé" for the base, with a small circle, containing his initials and a cross, placed inside the figure. Joseph Nicolas, his son, who was born at Mirecourt in 1796 and died there in 1864, worked with his father until the latter's death, and then carried on the business. He signed all his work with a pen, "J. Nicolas Fils," and marked it off as a ticket with the punch. When Joseph died, his widow sold the business to a violin maker of Mirecourt, named Derazey, and, curiously enough, along with it the right to use the above two marks, so that it is quite possible purchasers may find bearing them to-day new violins with the manufacture of which father and son had nothing to do. As I have not seen any instruments by these makers, I cannot describe the appearance which their marks present in the interior. If the punch used was an ordinary one, the carbonised marks in the violin would form the letters, and if the punch employed was such as used to engrave musical characters on wood, the letters would be in relief and the burnt marks be around them. From a fac-simile it would appear that the first-named was the kind employed.
3But perhaps the maker of this group who became most celebrated was F. L. Pique, the supposed pupil of Saunier before mentioned. Pique was in Paris in 1788, and died in 1822 at Charenton Saint Maurice,
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