Louis Henry Gillet

Life and Career

Louis Henri Gillet was born in Nancy, where his father, Edouard Gillet, was a violin maker. In all likelihood, when he was about 14 years old, he moved to Mirecourt, where he trained with one of the many local bow makers.

Mirecourt was a small town in northern France where the finest violin makers had come from or had received their training. It had also produced exceptional bow makers. It had fallen into decline somewhat due to the fierce competition resulting from mass production, which had spread throughout Europe. Only a few small, independent bow makers and violin makers remained in Mirecourt who could compete with the dominant position of major producers such as Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy. In his workshops, in addition to a small number of high-quality violins and bows, some 1,000 workers produced another 130,000 inexpensive instruments each year.

Louis Henri Gillet worked for this large company from 1906 to 1911, first in the department where the basic canes were manufactured, and later he made them for their high-end line. This required craftsmanship and talent. Louis Henri Gillet proved to possess both in abundance.

Shortly after leaving Thibouville-Lamy, he started his own business. He made bows for Paul Serdet in Paris, who had just as high standards for them as he did for the instruments he built himself. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, he was called up for mobilization, and when the war broke out, he was assigned to active duty. He was wounded and took a long time to recover. He presumably went on to make bows for a few customers, but amid the large firms that were able to recover after the war, he had little chance of running a successful business of his own.

In 1921, he began working as a bow maker at the Laberte company, which had been crafting musical instruments since 1790. In 1920, Marc Laberte had managed to acquire the even older firm Fournier Magié and, following the merger, surrounded himself with a number of highly skilled violin and bow makers. Louis Henri Gillet made excellent bows for Laberte, which were branded with his employer’s name or with “V.J. Ferelli.” Louis Henri had been drawn to the small scale of a modest family business, but Laberte experienced explosive growth. Ten years later, Marc Laberte employed 500 workers.

For Louis Henri Gillet, Laberte soon became too crowded; in 1924, he returned to Nancy, got married, and two years later moved with his wife to Châlon-sur-Saône. There, he moved into a small house surrounded by vegetable gardens and plenty of greenery. In one of the small rooms, whose shutters he always kept closed, he made bows for others. He managed to sell only a small number of them directly to musicians. During that period, he made most of his bows for Jules Lavest, who was not a violin maker but a dealer in stringed instruments and bows.

His bows caught the attention of Eugène Sartory, who, after the war, was one of the few independent bow makers remaining in Paris. Sartory was famous and celebrated, not only for his high-quality bows but also for his assertive business acumen. In 1921, he had traveled to America himself with a crate full of bows. There, he discovered that his name was also on a shipment of counterfeit bows that had never left his workshop. He took the perpetrators to court, after which he not only applied his brand mark in the usual place but also, invisibly to the naked eye, inscribed his initials beneath the winding. He invited Louis Henri Gillet to come to Paris, and together they began a working relationship that would last 12 years. From that point on, Gillet abandoned his old model and based his work entirely on that of Eugène Sartory.

The bows he marketed under his own name were similar as well. Just like Eugène Sartory, he branded them with his own name on the side and his initials beneath the winding.

Eugène Sartory died in 1946. His son-in-law, George Dupuy, took over the business, but Louis Henri Gillet could not get along with him. Shortly thereafter, he severed ties with him. Louis Henri Gillet had made bows for Dupuy that initially bore a strong resemblance to Sartory’s style; later, he shifted to a style that was more popular among musicians: that of Peccatte.

That turned out to be a wise move. His reputation as a skilled bow maker grew, allowing him to afford precious materials such as gold, ivory, and tortoiseshell. His most productive period began in the 1950s; for ten years, he produced a large number of bows of exceptional quality.

Until 1967, Louis Henri Gillet had never allowed anyone into his workshop. The death of his son André in 1967 changed that. Immediately after André’s death, Louis Henri drew up a will himself and stipulated that upon his death, everything was to go to Marie-Pierre Henry. She had been a close friend of André’s and had cared for Louis Henri and his wife “like a daughter.” Marie-Pierre Henry became the first person he allowed into his workshop.

Louis Henri Gillet died in 1970 at the age of 79. After his death, she and Louis Henri’s widow donated all of the remaining tools and bows to Bernard Ouchard’s “Ecole de Lutherie” in Mirecourt.

Louis Henri Gillet produced a large number of bows, almost all of which were of excellent quality. He supplied not only Eugène Sartory but also Joseph Aubry, George Dupuy, Victor Fétique, Jules Laveste, and Paul Serdet.

The Work and Influence of Louis Henri Gillet

His early bows are generally round and do not yet have a clearly distinctive design. Beginning in 1926, he produced work for Eugène Sartory, initially just the bow sleeves, but soon the entire bow. Sartory had precisely specified every component, and Louis Henri crafted them according to these standards, including those he sold himself. They still reflect the influence of Lamy and Voirin: light, elegant, and refined. Over time, Sartory developed his own, slightly more robust model, which Gillet also adopted.

Like Eugène Sartory, he changed the cross-section of his bow from round to octagonal. The collaboration with Sartory also improved the quality of the wood used. Both bowmakers used only the finest pernambuco. Sartory, who was a generation older, had a long career behind him, and had reliable suppliers, ensured that Gillet, too, had access to high-quality materials.

Between 1950 and 1960, Henry Louis Gillet crafted his finest canes, mostly octagonal in shape and often featuring a sliding mechanism designed by Hill: a complex construction intended to provide greater stability to the joint between the shaft and the ferrule. Together with the ingeniously crafted ferrules and knobs made of gold, ivory, or tortoiseshell, they were technical masterpieces. He branded his canes with: L. Gillet and H.L.G.

The bow in the collection of the Musical Instrument Fund is a magnificent example of the work he produced during his prime.

Sources

Millant, B., Raffin, J.F., (2000) *L'Archet: French Bowmakers, 1750–1950*. Paris.

Vatelot, E. (1976), *Les Archets Français*. Nancy.

Jacquot, A., 1912, La Lutherie Lorraine et Française, Paris.

Henley W., 1959 Universal Dictionary of Violin and Bow Makers. Amati Publications. London.

Vannes, R., 1999, *Universal Dictionary of Instrument Makers*, Spa.

Tarisio; the Cozio archives, accessed in 2021.

Geneanet, accessed in 2021.

Archives Nationales de France, accessed in 2021.