Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › the history of the violin, 1864 › scan 181

Scan 181

the history of the violin, 1864

2 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 159. See the scan on archive.org.

1of coarse hair rudely stretched between the two extremities. In the sixteenth century some improvement was made, and in the seventeenth it began to assume its present shape, and by means of a sort of metal band with teeth towards the handle of the bow, power was given to alter the tension of the hair. Tourte, of Paris, the first of this well-known family, is said to have introduced the screw and button. His son, who died in 1835, at an advanced age, made further improvements. It is stated that he began to make them with common wood from pipe-staffs and sugar barrels, and sold them for twenty or thirty sous each. Afterwards he discovered that Brazil wood was best adapted for the purpose, and latterly sold his best bows, ornamented with mother-of-pearl and gold, for as much as twelve louis, and those with ebony and silver, for three and a half louis; whilst his common bows, without ornament, were sold for about thirty-six francs each. He is said to have invented the method of keeping the hair flat by means of a clasp or plate of metal or mother-of-pearl. His violin and tenor bows were about thirty inches long, and that for the violoncello about an inch shorter. Simpson, we may remember, gives twenty-seven inches as the length of the bow, and towards the end of this century the sonata bow, it is said, was only twenty-four inches, while the common bow was shorter still. The usual length now is about twenty-nine inches from the extreme point of the head to the end of the bow, without the screw; leaving from twenty-five and a half to twenty-five and three quarter inches for the useable portion of the bow. Tartini caused an improvement in this as well as other things connected with the instrument. We need scarcely remind our readers that we have English makers of the

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