violin bow
Karel van der Meer
built in Amsterdam in ± 1920
A violin bow from the workshop of Karel van der Meer with a barely legible brand mark reading “K. v.d. Meer Amsterdam.” Round shaft, round ebony frog with an eye, silver mount.
History of this instrument
Mirte de Kok was the first to use this bow from Karel van der Meer’s workshop in 1994, immediately after the Musical Instrument Fund had received the bow as a gift from a generous donor. Mirte played with the bow for ten years, after which it was Anna Badalian’s turn. Femke Hempel then played with it, and currently Maaike van Vossen is the lucky violinist who holds the bow.
About the builder Karel van der Meer
It is thanks to Karel van der Meer that the somewhat stagnant Dutch violin-making world was able to revive itself at the end of the nineteenth century. He made very few instruments himself; his contribution lies more in the fact that he...