Paris’ Golden Period

By 1810, when this violin was made, Nicolas Lupot was already recognised as the leading violin maker in Paris, and Paris was set to become the new epicentre of the craft in Europe. His collaboration with the Abbé Sibire in 1806 had produced ‘La Chélonomie’, one of the first published books on the history of the violin and its making. Three years later he had gained an appointment to the Royal and Imperial Chapel, followed by further court appointments to both Emperor and King, a career made and spent in raucous times, under three very different régimes.

He arrived at this celebrity after training with his father François in Orléans, although he was born in Stuttgart in 1758. The family, like many French luthiers, came from Mirecourt stock and practiced in that workmanlike style. From 1792 Nicolas began to supply instruments to the then dominant figure in Paris, François Pique, and in 1796, under the post-revolution Directoire government, established himself in his own workshop in Paris in rue de Grammont. In 1806, at the height of the Napoleonic era, Lupot moved to the rue Croix des Petits Champs, very close to Pique, who retired in 1816. The last nine years of Lupots’ life were spent under the restored monarchy, and his legacy after his death in 1824 was a new school of lutherie in Paris, based firmly on the principles of Stradivari.  His hallmark, readily distinguishable in this violin, is his fine craftsmanship, a control of technique and tool-handling that became the defining feature of the Paris school in the nineteenth century. It represents a dedication that survived three decades of the most intense social and political upheaval.

This violin is in excellent condition and displays the maker’s hand clearly. Like his master’s work, it is based on a Golden Period Stradivari model, but adapted to even larger dimensions, expanded by 2mm in length and widths. Again, the choice is of a single piece of maple for the back, handsomely marked with a deep flame. He also employed ebony for the purfling, but the mitres are less flamboyant, and actually, more Stradivarian in style. In general effect, the whole instrument is closer to the Stradivari model, and lacks some of the affectations of the Lupot. The immaculate varnish, of a consistent and deep red that often characterisies his work, has not been shaded or artificially aged, although Bernardel, along with Vuillaume, took such techniques to new levels. Internally, he departs from both Stradivari and Lupot in using pine for the morticed blocks and linings, which are noticeably larger than Lupot’s. The small pins are still present in the back plate, but split by the purfling and visible on either side of the inlay. On the front, the widely set soundholes are certainly an inheritance from Lupot, but the fluting of the slightly flared lower wing is more modest and carefully resolved into the arching. The scroll is an unerring reproduction of the Stradivari model, but shows no sign of the various layout marks seen in the Lupot. The black highlight of the chamfer is not carried on to the rib joins, as on the Lupot violin.