Page 69 - The Strad (February 2020)
P. 69
Lutherie
IN FOCUS
A close look at the work of great and unusual makers
NICOLAS LUPOT
WRITTEN BY JOHN DILWORTH
icolas Lupot was the son of François, a violin maker in Stuttgart. e
MAKER
family moved to Orléans when Nicolas was about ten years old, and his
NICOLAS LUPOT
earliest work is branded ‘Lupot, Orléans’. In around 1794 he began
N supplying instruments to François-Louis Pique in Paris. Pique was the NATIONALITY
leading French maker at the time, but after Lupot began to work in Paris himself in FRENCH
1794, he succeeded to that reputation before Pique’s retirement in 1816. At his shop
at 24 rue de Gramont, established in 1798, his brother François Lupot was employed BORN
1758
to make bows, and in 1802 Nicolas took on Charles François Gand as an apprentice.
He was later joined by Auguste Bernardel, and the two went on to form the Gand & DIED
Bernardel company that subsequently became another of the great Parisian ateliers of 1824
the period.
In 1806 the Lupot workshop moved to Rue Croix des Petits Champs, where INSTRUMENT
VIOLIN
J.B. Vuillaume was later established. Lupot received royal appointments in 1813 and
1816, and was made luthier to the Paris Conservatoire in 1817. As part of this latter DATE
role, he made instruments for prize-winning students, inscribed in gold leaf. Other 1810
important contributions to violin making include his collaboration with the Abbé
Sibire in writing La Chélonomie, the rst important study of the history of the craft,
and his restoration of the ‘Charles IX’ violin by Andrea Amati.
MATERIALS It would seem to be modelled on an
Lupot chose the nest materials to instrument of Guarneri’s middle period,
emulate the work of classical Cremonse from about 1736. ere were very few
makers, and the back of this violin is makers alert to the importance of
made of a ne single piece of quarter- Guarneri’s work this early in the 19th
sawn maple with a well-dened gure century – if any at all – which makes
descending across the instrument from this violin of 1810 particularly
left to right. e ribs are marked with signicant.
a slightly narrower ame, and the head
is of plainer maple. e front is of two ARCHING
matched pieces of spruce showing very e arching is very at and low, also
ne, straight and regular grain that recalling Guarneri, but is beautifully
broadens only slightly in the anks. As is and elegantly shaped around the edges.
usual for Lupot, the puring is made
from ebony. e internal structure is VARNISH
made of willow, with the middle linings e varnish is quite thin and close to
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY INGLES & HAYDAY FORM red-brown colour.
mortised to the block.
the wood, but with a deep pigmentation
and a slight pink hue to the overall
e violin is modelled on a distinctive
LABEL
large form, both broad and long, and
shows a remarkable ‘del Gesù’ inuence,
e label reads: ‘Nicolas Lupot, Luthier,
both in the strong curves of the outline
and in the shaping of the f-hole wings.
l’an 1810’.
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