PERSOIT   CA.  1820  

During my long wandering , I met two bows of rare beauty. A magnificent Pajeot and the bow I'm going to show you, one of the most beautiful among my favorites: Jean Pierre Marie Persoit.

Violin bow J.P.M. Persoit 1820 ca.

This bow is very beautiful, as you can see I enjoyed making a photo composition so, if you click on the image, you can download the file in high resolution and print it (recommended size 30 cm x 70 cm ca.), a gift from me to you .

To handle such rare and peculiar items is, every time, an incredible enrichment. The bows coming from this historical period are very important to understand the evolution of this instrument.

For example, watching the style of this Persoit, one can only agree with the M° J.F. Raffin,who referring to the works of F.X. Tourte and J.P.M. Persoit defines them as: "Quite individual creations."

Maestro Raffin means that the bowmaking of those years was so much at its beginning, to allow craftsmen to express themselves freely not being forced to adapt their own creative taste to canonized lines.

Each Persoit I had the opportunity to see is different from the other one . The musician playing this bow is a lucky man, as he owns two of them. Although both convey, like all his works, a unique serenity and grace , the shapes are totally different.

The bevels are large and important and tend to open at the arrival. Surely this kind of choice is tied to a stylistic and sound research, by enlarging it excessively the bevel could set the geometry of the head free, allowing it to vibrate better.

Once again the bevel allows us to place this bow in its historical period. Dominique Peccatte, as you know, solves the problem by turning the bevel inward, to provide visual elegance, without removing mechanical functionality.

From these three shots, the desire for thoroughness and attention to detail of this craftsman clearly exude. If you look at the bows of Persoit's colleagues, even the greatest one such as Tourte and and Peccatte, you will notice that they were not so particular in taking care of some details. The ridge lines of both is always very irregular and the ivory case is often a little bit crooked. This is because both of them knew that very few people use to watch the bows in this way and, consequently, they lowered the precision level.

He did not behave in this way. He didn't care if others did not noticed it, he could see it and wanted it to be perfect.

The frog represent the uniqueness that characterized those years. Longer than its usual size, this frog has been conceived probably without slide and ring, with uncovered hair. Probably, later on, the author himself added them.

The button of this bow is wonderful !

I remember the first time I saw it . I had just met the owner of this bow and I was so dazed that he must have thought that I was not completely normal.
This beautiful button reveals Persoit's working origins, as you will remember, before building bows, he was a goldsmith.

The proportions are simply perfect, with the ring of the collar slightly wider than the other. The button has clearly been hammered, considering the time, but unlike many of his colleagues that definitely had less experience in metalworking, since the collar is smaller, instead of being crushed as usual, here it is intact.

The silver rings have no nails fixing them to ebony and the reason is simple; the ebony under the silver is not always round , but octagonal. This may seem a little detail, having no importance for those of you who never did manual work, but I assure you that to center an octagonal made by a file, is a job whose difficulty and attention needed to carry it out, can be considered as a very strenuous work.

And here at last: the famous brand "P RS", I already spoke about, obtained by filing away the letters A and I from the the stamp PARIS.

We have finished, for the moment being, next week it will be Pajeot's turn.

So long.

Paolo