labelled Jean Baptiste Vulllaume à Paris, 3. rue Demours-Ternes JBV, signed internally on the upper treble bout of the back and numbered 2494
length of back 16¹/₄in., 41.3cm.

This viola is probably modelled after the Kux; Castelbarco Stradivari viola of circa 1720, for which Vuillaume made a replacement back around 1850.

Bibliography
Sotheby's: An Exhibition of the Work of J.B. Vuillaume, London, 2012, pp. 26-27
Greiner & Thöne, Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, plate 19

Provenance
Olivier Jaques (1920-2005) trained as a concert violinist and joined the Zurich Tonhalle orchestra. After a few years he decided to change career and became an architect, but he remained fascinated by stringed instruments. Over many decades he built a fine collection including two violins by Stradivari, one Guarneri del Gesù, and many of the finest Vuillaumes in existence, including the decorated violins Tsar Nicholas of 1841 and Caraman de Chimay of 1865.