A brief note on bows reconstruction
Our desire to produce well-founded reconstructions of historic bowed instruments led us to also confront the historical evolution of bows. We conduct our research by examining both iconographic sources and historic specimens from museums and private collections. Our goal is not simply to make good bows that look like their historical antecedents, but rather to make "correct bows" that are ideally suited to playing music from the early baroque period to the end of the 18th century – both for the violin and the viola da gamba family.
Most of the models I produced at my beginning were accurate copies of original specimens included in the catalogue which Dr. Rudolf Hopfner has made of the bows at the Kunst Historisches Museum Wien. As part of my ongoing search for further “primary sources”, I have also personally taken measurements of very important bows in several public and private collections:
- The Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna where is kept one of the few surely dated bows of the XVII century.
- the Orpheon foundation asked us to cooperate to edit the new catalogue of the Vazquez collection in Wien . Here is an abstract of the catalogue of bows.
- The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze allowed us to realize a complete catalogation of all bows of the collection. This work will be included in new general catalogue of the Museum and will be post soon on its website.
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