Rare Violins & Bows

Bows made by Dominique Peccatte are known as most fabulous tools for any string player to create a full-bodied yet colourful sound. Peccatte bows are admittedly by all means less sophisticated tools than bows by F.X. Tourte. However, they always aim to ensure stability and strength in an unmatched pragmatic way. This rather late bow of Peccatte’s production is a testimony of the period, when nickel-silver came into vogue for mounts as a more solid material than pure silver. For a short period, makers such as Pajeot, Maire and the Peccatte brothers assembled some of their best Pernambucco sticks with nickel silver mounts. We are proud to have placed this well-preserved specimen with one of the most eminent Russian pedagogues of our time.

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Samuel Allan is still somewhat overshadowed by his much better known English bow maker colleague James Tubbs, who also worked for the Hill firm just shortly before him. This may have to do with the fact that most of Samuel Allen's bows bear the Hill stamp such as the pictured one, and it’s sometimes tricky to clearly assign early Hill bows to one of the early Hill bow makers. However, Samuel Allen set an unsurpassed quality standard in the Hill bow production and the trained eye will quite easily recognise his work. He copied Tourte bows at the highest level, with great care for detail work and infallible taste for style. We have succeeded in integrating this extremely rare and superbly preserved viola bow in what is probably the most exclusive collection of fine English bows in the whole of Great Britain.

Nowadays it is quite rare to find a bow from one of the major bow manufacturers of the 19thcentury in entirely mint condition such as the one pictured above. James Tubbs and Samuel Allen, both working for the Hills in the late 19thcentury, are generally considered as the preeminent figures of the English bow making school. While Allen focused on fine copies of the Tourte model, James Tubbs invented his own model of which he produced a large amount. Only his very best bows were produced with engraved gold mountings such as the one pictured here. This exceptionally fine viola bow has remained virtually untouched in an important American collection until we were able to secure it for return to an eminent European collection. 

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Before he founded his own workshop in 1934, he worked more than two third of his lifetime for other workshops such as that of C.N. Bazin, Paul Blanchard, E. Sartory, Albert Caressa, Caressa & Français and occasionally also of his brother V. Fétigue. His bows show unmatched refinement and elegance and trie to emulate the style of his second teacher E. Sartory almost until the end of his production. A famous Russian virtuoso bought from us this incredibly fine and early cello bow by Jules Fétigue shown here. We recently returned this sensational bow, still in mint condition, back to our collection in exchange for an important cello bow from the Peccatte family.

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Speaking about Sartory’s bows means opening one of the biggest and most fascinating chapters in the history of bow making. Despite much turmoil in and around Sartory’s life, he was able to build bows of consistently high quality, which are today played by many renowned soloists all over the world. Great viola bows are in general quite difficult to find as not so many were built during the course of the last two centuries. This mint condition example is one of the finest viola bows we have ever come across, namely for its phenomenal choice of extremely dense Pernambucco and dark-black Ebony wood. It is little wonder the master decided to have it gold-mounted. We had the honour to sell this spectacular bow to an eminent British philanthropist. A fabulous American soloist now plays it.

We’re always looking for particularly fine bows that only rarely show up in the market.  E.A. Ouchard bows rank right on the top of our constant search for the finest bows of the 19th and 20th century and we are proud to have more than a dozen of his very best bows in our permanent collection. This special “constellation” viola bow shows the absolute climax of the prolific and consistently high quality production of this master bow maker. Since this bow is mounted in gold and tortoiseshell, TJD was providing the necessary CITES papers that are nowadays required to trade such specimens. This unique bow as well as many other extremely fine bows of this celebrated maker can be viewed in our premises on special request.

Little is know about this excellent German bow maker (b. in 1937), who produced only a small number of bows of extremely high quality in a relatively short period of time due to his premature death in 1968. Despite of several internships with German makers, his bows mainly show influences of an in-depth study of the old French masters. Most of his production is branded “Pierre Maure”, the French method of writing his name. The bow shown here is pictured in the book “German Bow Makers” vol.2 p. 87 and is based on a bold Peccatte model. The Tiger-striped stick is mind-blowingly beautiful and so are the frog and button, both perfectly executed in the French manner. Like many other collectable bows, we sold this gem to an investor who left it to us for further sale. 

Famous soloists such as Michael Rabin and Nathan Milstein were great admirers of the work of J.-J. Millant.  Those bows are, like those of his cousin Bernard Millant, clearly inspired by the Peccatte school and work almost as good as the originals. While the sticks usually are perfect copies, the frogs however show a fascinating variety of creativity and innovation. TJD has sold many bows by this master over the years. In fact, he ranks right at the top of all makers from which we sold bows. We are fortunate to still own in our collection some of his best bows such as the one pictured above. Most notable amongst them a full quartet of bows produced for an exhibition in 1972 mounted in gold, ivory and tortoiseshell. 

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Bows by Bernard Millant are a rare find since his production is rather small due to his time-consuming efforts as the world’s authority of expertise in bow making for well over 40 years of his life. Both trained as a violin and bow maker in Mirecourt alike, he fully followed the French tradition without the ambition to reinvent his craft but rather to confirm the best of it. His bows generally follow the Peccatte style while including the Hill-style underslide for offering greater stability between the stick and the frog, a technique used also by E.A. Ouchard and many other important makers. We sold this fine and great playing bow to a fabulous Austrian concertmaster.

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Jean-François Raffin is not only a living legend for his unmatched career as an expert, he is first of all but also a truly sophisticated and sought-after bow maker. For decades he was the driving force together with Bernard Millant to increase the efforts in research for a vaster understanding of the history and manufactory of bow making. TJD feels privileged to celebrate well over 30 years of intense friendship with this charismatic personality and to have commissioned a number of the finest bows of his production. This bow pictured above shows some rather experimental aspects of his early work. We have sold only a small number of his bows of which this one is on permanent loan to the TJD collection from a distinguished French collector. 

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The French bow making tradition has spread to other countries such as the US, England and Germany already by the end of the 19thcentury. Approximately hundred years later, Paul Martin Siefried established himself in the US as one of the world’s foremost bow makers after studying some of the very best of French bow making and restoring techniques under the guidance of Hans Weisshaar in LA. His bows are in the genre of Peccatte and Maire, but with the vibrance, sensitivity and resilience of bows by Tourte and Voirin. This unique cello bow was a gift for his dear friend Roland Baumgartner (Basel, CH) and is a testimony for what absolute perfection in bow making could mean. The bow is now owned by a Swiss investor. TJD feels privileged to show this unique gem on demand.

Jürg Dähler met Benoît Rolland about 30 years ago at Musicora in Paris with the daring intention of making the master to produce the very best viola bow ever made in the 20thcentury. After heard Jürg’s play, Benoît promised on the spot that he would try to fulfill this wish. Since then, the two friends have launched several highly exclusive bow projects for violin, viola and cello. TJD also collected and sold many fine bows of this great master over the years. The “signature” violin bow pictured here was specially developed to match the sound and the playing characteristics of a golden period Stradivari. It is made from the most exclusive materials and can be examined in our showroom.  

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We take great care to have excellent relationships with many of the leading bow makers of our time. There is nothing quite like the French tradition of bow making when it comes to unique works of art in this field. Interestingly the French continuously reinvented their own tradition: starting with the first F.X. Tourte’s bows in the modern style, the fabulous inventions of Pajeot and the new bow models by Peccatte, Voirin and Sartory, Jean-Pascal Nehr in Marseille and some of his compatriots nowadays bring this tradition of renewal into the 21stcentury. The exceptionally fine viola bow shown here with its frog entirely built out of a variety of several tortoiseshell parts is just one example of our exclusive selection of fine modern bows, most of them coming from France, the US, England, Germany and Switzerland.

Yannick Le Canu is internationally recognised both as one of the leading bow makers nowadays as well as one of the most recognised experts in bow making of our time.  Having won numerous awards in major bow making competitions, his bows are very much sought after by players and collectors alike. His production represents the peak of individual modern aesthetic based on utmost precision in the construction details. The pictured viola bow can be admired in our showroom and is a representative example for the quality of TJD’s collection of fine bows available to our valued customers.

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A student of the late Bernard Ouchard and a protégé of the late Bernard Millant for his internationally recognised expertise in bow making, Arnaud Suard works in a small workshop in the famous rue de Rome in Paris producing only a handful of extremely fine bows each year. Following the French tradition, he now and then experiments with various new materials to create unique works of art, always with the aim of offering new practical and aesthetic aspects for bow making and the use of his bows. This superbe gold mounted violin bow shown above is based on a model by Pierre Simon and combines the finest ebony from Mauritius with hardened multi-component material for the frog construction. We currently have a representative selection of fine bows from this acclaimed maker for you to try.