Books › The story of the violin, 1904 › scan 173
Scan 173
The story of the violin, 1904
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 137. See the scan on archive.org.
1Violin-making in France
3Claude Pierray (1725), Louis Guersan (1760); and, in more recent times, Chanot, Gand, and J. B. Vuillaume. France's contribution to the list of celebrated makers is very small, and, then, her best ones are but imitators.¹ This seems strange considering how artistic and emotional her people are, and how just that art should have appealed to them in its simple charm, not to mention that France was the nursery of the rebec and viol, and the home of the troubadour. Was it perhaps the centralisation of all artistic life in Paris which denuded the provinces of just those elements best suited for following this particular art?
5But although France cannot boast of Victor Hugos, Alfred de Mussets, and François Millets in fiddle-making, and whatever the reason of this barrenness, she has produced a line of men who understood the art of imitation—an art, too—no doubt a very useful one—albeit fraught with danger to him who gives himself up to it exclusively at the sacrifice of originality. In this particular line French luthiers have remained almost unexcelled. It may be that it was this very cleverness at imitation which taught the French violin-makers from Médard and De Comble down to desist from all attempts at original work, that more likely than not would prove futile in the end. To this day the amateur, eager to procure an old violin, and yet not in the position to pay for a better Italian production, will most safely seek it among the
7¹ See Appendix.
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