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Étienne Pajeot

A highly important and influential French bowmakers, Pajeot was born in 1791 in Mirecourt, the son of Louis Simon, who taught him the craft. His own branded work appears from around 1815, and his own taste and style asserting itself over the following five years. The workshop expanded to include  Claude Joseph Fonclause, Nicolas Mauchard and Nicolas Maline and reached its height around 1840, before Pajeot’s death in 1849. He supplied bows to Vuillaume in Paris, but developing a highly refined recognisable and much-imitated style, with dark stained round sicks and low, elongated frogs. He contributed particular advances to the design and function of the frog and screw mechanism.

Étienne Pajeot

(b Mirecourt, 1791; d Paris, 1849)

A highly important and influential French bowmakers, Pajeot was born in 1791 in Mirecourt, the son of Louis Simon, who taught him the craft. His own branded work appears from around 1815, and his own taste and style asserting itself over the following five years. The workshop expanded to include  Claude Joseph Fonclause, Nicolas Mauchard and Nicolas Maline and reached its height around 1840, before Pajeot’s death in 1849. He supplied bows to Vuillaume in Paris, but developing a highly refined recognisable and much-imitated style, with dark stained round sicks and low, elongated frogs. He contributed particular advances to the... Read more

Instruments for sale in our Private Sales

A nickel-mounted violin bow by Étienne Pajeot

Paris, circa 1820

Étienne Pajeot, the son of Louis Simon Pajeot, was trained from an early age in the family workshop. His name begins to appear on bows around 1815, and these early... read more

A nickel-mounted violin bow by Étienne Pajeot

Paris, circa 1820

Étienne Pajeot, the son of Louis Simon Pajeot, was trained from an early age in the family workshop. His name begins to appear on bows around 1815, and these early examples closely follow his father’s manner, featuring pointed heads and low, elongated frogs. Later the heads grow slimmer yet broader in profile, the frogs rise higher and are frequently made of ivory, and the buttons are sometimes unusually short, accented with octagonal rings. Beyond his refined workmanship, Pajeot distinguished himself as a bold innovator, introducing numerous construction methods designed to strengthen and safeguard vulnerable parts of the bow. His experiments with metal slides and his development of two distinct self-rehairing frog designs – both unlike those devised by J. B. Vuillaume – proved especially influential in shaping French bow making during this era. This example can be considered a turning point in Pajeot’s career: The gradual departure from his father’s style towards finding his own stylistic voice as a maker can be observed. It has a strong stick which makes an excellent companion to a player looking for a bow that combines the handling of early modern bows with the playability of its fully established later counterparts.

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