Guilda Pytlíci

I hope there are a few violinists out there who can help...

I have an old violin, made in (approximately) 1693. In 1970 I was told by my violin repairman (long deceased) that it was a Jean Baptiste-Voboam, who died in 1699. I searched Google and almost all the results I can find to Voboam are in reference to his guitars. He (and his family) was famous for guitars which are treasures today. But my repairman showed me a book of famous violins and their makers in which there was a biography of Jean Voboam and a bit about his violins. He made perhaps a dozen or so violins, favoring the Amati pattern (while his rival Stradavari in Italy was becoming famous for his lighter and smaller-bout violins).

I was told there were only a few of these violins left today, and mine was one of them.

This past weekend, I brought the old violin to a repairman here on Okinawa, who swears it is actually an Amati despite the name stamped inside that begins with J.VO--- (the rest is obscured and faded with the centuries).

He has never heard that Voboam made any violins, only guitars. And so he doesn't believe the name inside is the name of the genuine maker.

Does anyone have a book that gives the bio of Jean Voboam to include his violin making, and the reference to his use of the Amati pattern? Sadly, I do not recall the name of the book, only that it is in English and I guess it would be out-of-print now. I can find no mention of Voboam as a violin maker on the Net, other than his name in a list of violin makers (plus his birth/death years).


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