JACOB EURY,  THE MINOR  

Last night I was having a chat with master Ilya Grubert, who asked me why some big bowmakers of the Tourtian age, are unknown to most musicians. The answer is simple, the relationship that existed between Francois Xavier Tourte and his Contemporaries was very similar to that one between Beethoven and Schubert: - I am the God composer personified and you are just a poor composer of dancing halls songs ! -

Tourte was a hegemon; He was great and the others were Mr. Nobody. In fact, Lupot II, Persoit and Eury were, for centuries and even today, unknown to most musicians. Without wishing to detract anything from the magnificence of "Le Jeune", these three in particular have also contributed to create the modern bow and grandeur of the French school. But unlike Schubert, whose greatness is universally acknowledged today, these "other" remained partially in the shadow. The reason lies in commercial reasons: the more Tourte is a legend and the more you can raise the price of his bows ; you have to think that the reluctance is so strong that none of the great experts explicitly states that these three individuals have worked and studied with Him .

We already widely spoke about Persoit, now we will deal with one of the other two: Jacob Eury.

He follows his family tradition. He was born on April 6, 1765 in Mirecourt, by Francois Eury, violin and bow maker as well as trader and Libaire Villemin. Already at a young age (seven or eight years), he starts attending his father's workshop to learn the basics of the job.

He remains with him until 1784, when he is called to fulfill military service. After eight years of military service, he returned to Mirecourt in 1792 for a short period, after which he permanently moved to Paris.

The exact year in which he arrives in the capital is not known, what we know is that just as soon as he gets there, he goes to the court of God Tourte to improve his style, which was still very primitive in Mirecourt.
Some years later, in 1807, there are traces of a Hury, in the Paris commercial almanacs, residing in Rue des Boucheries, it is probably our Eury, with his family name changed by a probable spelling error.

In 1811 there are traces of him, this time with his right name at 24 Rue de Thionville. In '12 he moves to 20 Rue des Lyonnais Saint-Jacques , in the house of his future wife, Felicite Picasse.

In 1815 the business is not going very well, and as reported by official documents, Jacob is forced to borrow 500 francs by his fellow, the luthier Jean Gabriel Koliker.

In 1819 he moves to 27 Rue Croix des Petits Champs, three numbers away from Koliker probably because of the cooperation he had with him.

In '20 and '21, the registers state his residence in Rue de Bailly, in '22 moves the laboratory in Rue de la Clef. His best works belojng to this period and it was during these years that it will adopt a particular style of the head, which distinguishes him from all others, I will talk about it, in a more detailed way, in the next blog.

In 1826 his wife died and he is forced to sell the house to pay his debtors. In the same year he married a second time with Marie Le Boucher and moves to Versailles, her hometown.

From now on he officially retires from production, although he will go on building until the early '40s.

Separated from his wife and sickly, Jacob dies in Versailles on October 7, 1848, after having built hundreds of magnificent bows , often confused with those one of Francois Tourte, his famous colleague.

We stop here for the moment being, the style of this author will be thoroughly discussed next week. I will take the opportunity to make you a surprise. Stay tuned!

So long

Paolo