ERIK LINDHOLM

IN FOCUS

A close look at the work of great and unusual makers

Erik Lindholm was born in 1874 and grew up in Djurmo, a small village 150 miles north of Stockholm. He learnt the violin from his father. As the family could not afford a violin, the young boy made one himself. He studied in Markneukirchen and worked in Stuttgart and Cologne before returning to Sweden in 1907 to open his own violin shop in Stockholm. His skills in restoration were in demand and soon it became diffcult to find the time for new making. In the late 1920s, with the decline of the silent-movie era, many cinema musicians became unemployed. This was closely followed by the Great Depression, and Lindholm was obliged to let his two employees go and reschedule his daily routines. He would close the shop at 6pm, take the bus home, have a light meal and sleep until 1am, whereupon he would catch the last bus back into town and work until 9am when the shop opened.

Lindholm, my great-grandfather, was obsessed with violin making throughout his life, and when his son Bengt moved out he set up a workbench in the vacant room. This meant he could now devote evenings and Sundays to new making at home, rather than return to the shop.

MAKER ERIK LINDHOLM

NATIONALITY SWEDISH

BORN 1874

DIED 1952

INSTRUMENT VIOLIN

DATE 1909

ALL PHOTOS STEFAN LINDHOLM

MODEL, MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

This 1909 violin was constructed on an interior mould, and there are locating pins on both the back and front. The outline comes from an Amati-type instrument Lindholm repaired early in his career. Many of his violins are made from beautiful materials and we know he preferred well-seasoned wood. Some of his spruce came from a 200-year-old house in Vienna, and some from the Hedvig Eleonora Church in Stockholm. The maple used for the back is deeply flamed and compact in structure but displays a couple of irregularities: there is a filled knot in the C-bout area and next to it a sap grain running almost the entire length of the back, right beneath the soundpost.

DETAILS AND EXECUTION

The f-holes are cut sharply with slightly oval eyes at the top and bottom, which is typical of Lindholm’s work regardless of the pattern he used. The scroll shows almost no toolmarks with Thutings carved rather deep, a stylistic feature we also find in the plates. Lindholm was apparently careful to make the neck comfortable for the violinist, so much so that the Spanish violinist Juan Manén once asked him to travel to Germany just to make a neck graft on his damaged violin. Overall, the woodwork is sharply executed and has been finalised with slightly rounded corners and softened chamfers.

VARNISH

Lindholm was obsessed with varnish and experimented with new recipes and ingredients on a regular basis. The oil-based varnish on this violin has been laid over a deep and clear ground. The colour, which gives an antique brown impression, is not in fact caused by the pigmentation but by the dark wood and orange varnish with grey patina on top. Although Lindholm had learnt to age varnish in Cologne back in 1905, he did not antique his instruments. He preferred to let them age naturally and, as the history of this violin has been well recorded, we know that the wear patterns occurred during its first 50 years.