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Scan 145
The Hawley Collection of violins, 1904
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 75. See the scan on archive.org.
1neri. Of all the makers who worked in France prior to 1800, in our opinion the palm must be accorded to him, for the reason that his violins excel all others in their musical worth. Castagneri was an Italian who settled in Paris about 1730 and continued at work there for a period of over forty years. Had he remained in Italy, he would be accorded a high place in the list of makers of the second class. The influence of Stradivari is strongly marked in all his work, and, as the pioneer of correct model in France, and for his excellent workmanship, varnish, and wood, the name of Andrea Castagneri is justly entitled to the highest place in the French Hall of Fame. Castagneri was as much French as the Corsican Napoleon, yet he suffered from his foreign birth. Had he been born in France the recognition he deserved would have been given to him unstintingly. No one can say how great was the influence of this comparatively unknown man upon the art of violin construction in France. His model is large, broad, and flat—the wood leaves nothing to be desired, his varnish has a softness of texture and richness of color not since known among French workmen up to this time. He left his violins far heavier in wood than his contemporaries, and consequently the few which have come down to us under his name have done so in a surprisingly good state of preservation.
3The Lupot family of violin-makers came originally from Mirecourt. The family house still stands and is now in the possession of the bow-maker, Charles Bazin. Jean Lupot was the first of the name of whom there is any record. He flourished during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. We have never seen any of his work, but in all likelihood it is in the same class as that of the other makers of the day. Laurent Lupot was born in Mirecourt in September, 1696. He established himself in Plombieres, and afterwards in Orleans. In the former city François, father of Nicolas, was born, in 1736. In 1758 he, having been appointed maker to the Duke of Wurtemberg, removed to Stuttgart, and it was here shortly after his arrival that his son Nicolas, often called the French Stradivari, was born. Nicolas Lupot spent his early days in Stuttgart, but when he was twelve years of age, his father removed to Orleans, where the name of Lupot was well known, and so it was that the first work of this celebrated maker appeared in that ancient city. This was about 1778, when Nicolas was barely twenty years of age. Notwithstanding the influence the work of a father might be expected to exert over his own son, there is a total absence of anything to remind one of the elder Lupot in the violins of Nicolas after the year 1785. The model Nicolas adopted was patterned after that of Stradivari, while his father still adhered to the small, narrow form, well arched, which was common among the early French makers. Nicolas, in preference apparently to all other, used a dark, red-colored varnish in all of his Orleans violins. This is of excellent quality, being soft in texture, a respect in which it was superior to that used by any other French maker up to that time, with the possible exception of Andrea Castagneri. The decline of violin-building in Italy, the increased political and commercial importance of France, and great inherent merit of the French violins, all served to bring them into greater prominence in the world, and Lupot's fame even at this time began to spread beyond French borders. At home he was recognized always as the first of French makers. Realizing the limit placed on his endeavors by his surroundings in the provincial town of Orleans, Lupot moved to Paris, in the year 1794, establishing himself in Rue de Grammont, whence his labels to 1803 are dated. His best
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