EUGENE NICOLAS SARTORY; THE VELOCIRAPTOR

Fast, sharp and unrelenting, he is considered one of the most ruthless and dangerous predators of his era. Absolute ruler of his territory, almost no one could rival Eugène Sartory! What did you expect ? Have you thought I was talking about the famous Cretaceous dinosaur ?

Velociraptor 

Apart jokes (hoping you didn't mind) , the parallel between the fierce carnivore and Sartory is obviously very extreme, but not that wrong. Even if he didn't eat raw meat , the effect of his dominant personality has affected a lot the development of style and modern taste, effectively annihilating all the rest.

When the very young, probably still fifteen, Sartory arrives in Paris by Charles Peccatte, he barely knows the job rudiments given to him by his father, being even a rather poor craftsman and, yet after a few months, he decides that that teacher doesn't suit him.

When it comes to Lamy "Père", the latter is handling the enormous heritage of his master Francois Nicolas Voirin, died less than two years ago, certainly at that time he was still building bows for the widow stamping them with her husband's name , the famous "Voirin de la Veuve".

The work started by Voirin after the first half of '800, at the time of his death is far from being finished, but neither Thomassin, nor Lamy, his students, have the talent to carry it out. And it is in this very vague scenary that Sartory arrives .

As all students who have become more clever than their teachers, He too, before developing his own style and mechanics, learns the Voirin-Lamy one, finding it in both his heads and frogs of the earliest period.
After having strengthened his grounding, in 1889 when he is only eighteen, he opens his own business and begins developing his shapes .

The head by Lamy is not bad, but something in its geometry doesn't t convince him . Although with the change of mechanic,  the head profile appears as triangular, the Lamy are excessive, exactly like the Sartory ones of the earliest period .

The first thing he does is trying to to raise the profile of the wedge ridge in order to increase its thickness, but the result is not as hoped and the head loses harmony. He then realizes that if he wishes to raise the wedge, he must necessarily intervene elsewhere.

The first point that he changes is the lower part of the wedge digging it slightly more. In this way he makes the front part less awkward , but it is not yet enough.
After dealing with the bevel, which is becoming less open and straighter, thereby detaching himself from one of the peculiar mark of his teacher. With this operation, he gives consistency to the central part of the head making it appears as more important. In the picture you can see an almost classic example (the "almost" will be explained later on )

Violin bow Eugène Sartory about 1920

The frogs development is faster . In Sartory they stretch slightly and the upper part of the throat opens much towards the outside; his personal mark.
One unwritten rule, that many will follow after him, is to mount the full eye with a three-part button , and the "Parisian eye " with full button (see photo).

At this point, its evolution is over and starts a performance. As mentioned at the beginning of the blog, Sartory has a predator attitude. He built bows for the the most important workshops of his time, a bow instrumentalist was considered as such only if he owned a Sartory.

The reason of this success has many sources.

The bows are built with materials that were uncommon for the time, going against the tide, he uses wood often tending to a light color and not very dense, thanks to  his great sensitivity he understands that the color is not a reliable indication of quality.
The stylistic is attractive, light and refined, so to make followers not only among most of his contemporary craftsmen.

With success, the demand increases, and this is where many skilled craftsmen failed. One thing is to have a great manual skill and build excellent bows, much more serious is to manage a workshop where the bows are made by someone else and keeping a a good quality level at the same time .

Sartory stands out in this as well . Many crafstmen work for him, and not all French, but he can handle them and make them work at their best , creating the only workshop with a serial-style production, able to maintained the quality of the product at a y level comparable to that of the brand owner. Of course, in his production you can see the different working hands , hence the explanation of the "almost" I mentioned above.

Last but not least, Eugene Sartory is a kind of Steve Jobs of the bow. Besides having a great product,  is a genius in both communication and market. He dominates it almost totally up to create a true legend.

A dominant personality, overall even more complete than the other great bowmaking star Dominique Peccatte, a histrionic person whose success during his life is virtually unrivaled in modern times, the only other one comparable to him is undoubtedly Antonio Stradivari .

As already mentioned a pure and  bright example of a Raptor !

Eugène Sartory worked for per:

Nestor AUDINOT, Paul BLANCHARD, CHANOT & CHARDON, Nicolas DARCHE, Eugène GARTNER, Emile GERMAIN, Joseph HEL, Paul JOMBAR, E. LEMOINE, OLIVER, SILVESTRE & MAUCOTEL, Hippolyte Chrétien SYLVESTRE, N. SIMOUTRE.

So long

Paolo