Nicolas Léonard & François Xavier Tourte, “brothers”

Career

Nicolas Léonard and his brother François Xavier Tourte grew up in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine neighborhood—a district in Paris that, since the 15th century, had been the only one to allow artisans to settle freely. It was a lively, rebellious neighborhood populated mainly by woodworkers and furniture makers. They enjoyed a golden age here because they were not required to submit to the strict authority of the powerful guilds. The freedom that prevailed in Faubourg Saint-Antoine allowed the finest artisans to create their most beautiful work there. They were able to craft furniture—often ingeniously decorated—that would never have been permitted elsewhere in Paris by the guilds. This attracted people who loved innovation. Nicolas Léonard and François Xavier’s father worked in this neighborhood. He was a cabinetmaker—a profession considered the aristocracy among woodworking trades. Nicolas Pierre Tourte made not only furniture there, but also violins and bows.

He had presumably learned the craft of violin making from Jean Matthias Wolters, a German violin maker with whom he was in close contact. Starting in 1742, he called himself a violin maker but also crafted bows. Until then, bows had been considered little more than an accessory and were often made not by the violin maker himself but by one of his apprentices. That year, Nicolas Pierre Tourte’s first wife died. A year later, in 1743, he remarried. From that marriage, Nicolas Léonard was born in 1746, and François Xavier followed two years later.

As a boy of about ten, Nicolas Léonard became an apprentice to his father, under whom he developed a special interest in bows. He would go on to devote himself entirely to making them. Historians consider him the first true bow maker in French history. When Nicolas Léonard was eighteen and François Xavier was sixteen, their father died. From that moment on, the brothers had to rely on each other. As the eldest, Nicolas Léonard felt responsible for his brother, who was two years younger, and for the workshop.

Despite the bustling trade in Faubourg, incomes were so low that poverty prevailed there. Nicolas Pierre Tourte wanted to spare his youngest son, François Xavier, from this fate and sent him to his cousin Antoine Lévêque to train as a clockmaker. That profession carried more prestige and offered a good chance for a better future. The apprenticeship lasted six years, and it took François Xavier eight years to earn his master’s certificate. After that, he called it quits; he was twenty-five years old at the time. Nicolas Léonard likely persuaded him to become a bow maker and taught him the trade himself.

Once he had mastered that, François Xavier set up his own business in the Clôitre de Notre Dame. It was located just outside the Faubourg Saint-Antoine district, not far from his brother’s place. The brothers got along well and continued to do so in the years that followed. This allowed them to encourage one another without viewing the other as a competitor.

During that period, they experimented with the choice of wood, the shape of the bow head, the length of the bow stick, and the bow hair. Meanwhile, Wilhelm Cramer, a German violinist, had arrived in Paris with a new model of bow. It was a bow with a heavy frog that resembled a battle axe. Overall, it was slightly longer than existing bows. But most importantly, the bow was not convex, like Baroque bows, but slightly concave. He had had the bow made in Mannheim according to his specifications.

First, Cramer came into contact with Nicolas Léonard, and later with François Xavier. Cramer had already achieved success in Germany with his revolutionary bow, and now he was looking for someone who could introduce it to the Parisian market on his behalf. Nicolas Léonard saw new possibilities in the Cramer model and asked François Xavier to make one for him and, where possible, even improve upon it. The new bow quickly gained unprecedented popularity, particularly in high society. Rather than sticking with a single successful model, François Xavier continued to experiment.

Giovanni Battista Viotti was aware of this when he arrived in Paris in 1782. As a celebrated violinist and director of various opera companies, he wielded enormous influence both within and outside the Paris Conservatory at that time. He noticed that, as musical and performance practices were changing, violinists were finding the limitations of the existing bow design increasingly problematic. Viotti found in both the Tourtes brothers the craftsmanship needed to take the next step in developing a new type of bow. Together, they solved a number of problems.

This led to a bow design in which the hair was no longer loose inside the bow sleeve but was held together by a metal ring with a wedge. The large head of the Cramer model was in turn replaced by a smaller and lighter model, giving the bow better balance. Thanks to Viotti’s influence, the new Tourtes bows quickly became popular among Paris’s leading musicians. During his training as a clockmaker, François Xavier had also learned to work with gold and silver. As a result, he was presumably the first—and only—person capable of fitting the most valuable bows with a gold and tortoiseshell mount made entirely by his own hand. Before him, bow makers had had to rely on silversmiths. He made many of these bows for his brother.

He had developed an ever-growing network of connections with Freemasons and the Parisian elite, which earned him an impressive list of wealthy clients for these expensive bows. The French Revolution, which broke out in 1789, had different consequences for the two brothers. François Xavier was able to adapt flawlessly to these changes and thus became one of the most important bow makers in history; for Nicolas Léonard, the revolution nearly proved fatal. The advantage he had enjoyed through his associations with the Parisian elite would be short-lived. Initially, only the aristocrats, the bourgeoisie, and the Freemasons were persecuted, but later the persecution also extended to everyone who had served them.

It was not uncommon for them to end up under the guillotine. Until 1792, Nicolas Léonard was still able to carry out his work undisturbed, but after that he was forced to go into hiding. François Xavier had never associated with the elite and was therefore able to continue his work undisturbed. He still collaborated with Nicolas Léonard, but they had to do so in secret. François was now the only remaining Tourte who could openly make and sell their bows. Historical research supports the theory that, despite this turbulent period, their long-standing collaboration was the decisive factor in their ultimate success.

François Xavier could only continue to develop the bow after Nicolas Léonard had laid the groundwork for it. François Xavier’s collaboration with Nicolas Léonard gradually diminished starting in 1800. From 1800 to 1805, very few bows made by them appeared. Weary of persecution, Nicolas Léonard died in 1807. François Xavier then continued on his own until his death in 1835.

Work and Influence

The collaboration between François Xavier and Nicolas Léonard began around 1775. At that time, they experimented with the choice of wood, the shape of the head, the length of the shaft, and the grip. Influenced by Cramer, they were already making canes with a concave curve. Their canes were refined and slender, often featuring silver ferrule plates, which were believed to provide added strength.

After that, beginning in 1784, they collaborated with Viotti to take the final step toward what can be considered the modern bow. A few years before the outbreak of the French Revolution, François Xavier’s first gold-mounted bow appeared. Around 1783, he fitted the bow sleeve and end button with a ring of silver or gold.

It was not until 1795 that he added an insert and a wedge to the slipper that pressed the ribbon flat against it. The mother-of-pearl eyelet in his slippers, which later became so characteristic, was still missing. Until 1805, their shafts were almost always round; after that, François Xavier made them predominantly octagonal. The slipper still slid along the shaft without the metal spacer that later became standard.

Experts believe that it was likely their experiments that contributed to the rod tapering logarithmically from thick to thin. No evidence has been found that they calculated this gradual tapering of the rod; it was likely more a matter of their intuitive approach. The final result ensured that the tension in the strings would remain even along the entire length of the rod while playing.

The impact this had on violin playing would not be fully understood until years later. The influence of the two Tourtes brothers can hardly be overstated. They quickly gained recognition for the high degree of perfection their bows had attained; even during their lifetimes, their bows were copied far beyond the borders of France. Many skilled bow makers, including Jacob Eury, Joseph Henry, François Lupot, Nicolas Maire, Nicolas Maline, Dominique Peccatte, and Jean Pierre Marie Persoit, based their work on the model jointly developed by the brothers and, later, on the one that François Xavier continued to refine.

Sources

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