Page 35 - The Strad (February 2020)

VUILLAUME’S EARLY YEARS

OF A MASTER

Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume was the most
successful French luthier of his time, but
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ean-Baptiste Vuillaume is, along with Nicolas Lupot,
the most famous French luthier in history. Today his
J instruments are sought-after and appreciated by
musicians just as much as when they were rst crafted
in the mid-19th century – perhaps even more so. As a luthier
myself, I feel a sense of pleasure every time a Vuillaume
instrument appears on my workbench, and it’s heartening to
note the ever-increasing interest from players and customers
in the works of our illustrious predecessor. Vuillaume can
accurately be called ‘a mid-19th-century maker’: his rst labels
are dated 1823, and he died in 1875. His career was one of
incredible richness as well as resounding success, a testimony to
his brilliant entrepreneurship given the turbulent times he lived
through. One could say it was an almost perfect success story
– although not a universal one. Despite the plethora of books
and articles about the middle and later parts of Vuillaume’s
career, hardly anything has been written about his early years.
Žis short period is still a grey area for most musicians, and
indeed luthiers, even though it explains much about the
formative in’uences on the great 19th-century master.
Having learnt the craft of violin making with his father
in Mirecourt, the 19-year-old Vuillaume rst came to Paris
36 ;3 #3ħ31 Label from
in 1818, where he took up a position with François Chanot. Vuillaume’s violin number 2 (1823);
Žis only lasted a short time, however, as Chanot left the city signature inside number 39 (1826);
and that of number 53 (1827)
in November 1820. Vuillaume may have returned to Mirecourt
brie’y, until the Chanot workshop was taken over by Nicolas
Antoine Lété. An organ builder by trade, Lété had been in the
West Indies but returned to Paris when this opportunity arose.
It didn’t take him long to realise that Chanot’s violon-guitare professional clientele. Competition was erce in the early 1820s,
would not be his path to fame and fortune, and set about and Lété soon found his strategy beginning to pay o¡. It may
reorienting the business. Že new plan was simple: to make have received a boost in 1823 at the sixth Exposition des produits
copies of old Italian instruments, but at very reasonable prices de l’industrie française, where the ‘House Lété de Paris’ received
in order to attract students and amateur musicians. For this he a silver medal for a ‘string quartet and bows’. Held at the
had one major asset: the ambitious, talented and hard-working
Louvre, this exhibition attracted 1,642 exhibitors and was
ALL PHOTOS JONATHAN MAROLLE Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, whose skills up to this point had been a precursor to the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. Žis
recognition would certainly have motivated Lété to continue
exclusively harnessed to the making of violin-guitars. Že most
his approach, and encouraged the young Vuillaume to persist
prominent luthiers of the day were Lupot, Charles François
Gand, Jacques-Pierre Žibout and Jean-François Aldric, whose
in the making of quartet instruments inspired by Italian masters
contracts with orchestras, theatres and (in Lupot’s case) the
– as noted above, the rst instruments bearing his signature date
Conservatoire de Paris allowed them to capture most of the
from this auspicious year.
FEBRUARY 2020 THE STRAD 35
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