CHRISTIAN WILHELM KNOPF

Lutherie

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Christian Wilhelm Knopf is regarded as the founding father of the Knopf bow making family. He is mentioned as a bow maker in the Markneukirchen church records in 1795, at the baptism of his daughter Christina. His father, Johann Gottlob Knopf (dates unknown) was primarily a tailor but also a violin dealer and maker of strings. He also made some poor-quality beechwood bows. Some of these unstamped bows date from before 1800, with a frog set on the stick by means of a kind of railtrack.

The history of bow making in Germany is as old as that of violin making. For hundreds of years the bows were made in luthiers’ workshops without the craft being recognised as a separate profession. In 1790 the bow makers of Markneukirchen tried to form a guild but the attempt failed because of resistance from local instrument makers. We may assume that C.W. Knopf learnt bow making from his father but there is no evidence for this.

During the development period of the modern bow in France, bow makers in other countries were watching the achievements of the Tourte brothers with great interest. It took no more than ten years before the new type of bow was being manufactured in neighbouring countries. The first transformation towards the violin bow as we know it today was the so-called ‘Cramer’ bow (originally from Germany), which was adopted by the Tourte brothers during the period 1770–90. The Dodd family would be producing this type of bow in England around a decade later. The transitional bow designed by the Tourtes in about 1790 became the starting point of C.W. Knopf in Markneukirchen around ten years after.

Identifying German bows from the Tourte period is difficult. A lot of bow makers apparently worked in Markneukirchen around 1800, and the well-known ‘flower frog’ bows are not only the work of the Knopf family. Nevertheless we can determine the work of C.W. Knopf based upon stylistic features. In particular there are three different styles I have come to recognise, especially regarding the frog:

• The frog with pearl flower inlay, sometimes combined with pearl stripes in the handle

• The frog with pearl shields inlay

• The frog in the style of Nicolas Léonard Tourte, François Lupot II or Jacob Eury, as with the bow shown opposite

In the frogs, the back side is usually at an angle of more than 90 degrees. It may also be a little rounded.

The throats of these frogs are quite characteristic, with a short thumb projection and small ferrule, reminiscent of those by N.L. Tourte and by Georges Frédéric Schwartz (1785–1850) of Strasbourg.

In most cases there is no original liner, and the mountings of the frog, button and the faceplate of the head are all of silver. Nickel-silver was a new invention used by bow makers from 1825 onwards. Therefore, the frogs mounted in nickel-silver with or without a liner usually denote a late work by C.W. Knopf in collaboration with his sons.

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The silver of the heelplate is bent at a sharp angle but in one piece, and stops before reaching the stick in the same way as those seen in frogs by French makers of the period such as Lupot and Eury. Sometimes the heelplate is formed into a point.

The position of the frog on the stick without tension is usually such that the back of the frog lines up with the end of the mortise. Sometimes the end of the mortise is just visible, in contrast with French bows where the frog is covering the mortise.

STICK

C.W. Knopf preferred an octagonal stick, like the bow shown here. The octagon is made in the Tourte way: the square facets are a little bit wider. The quarter-sawn pernambuco of this bow is an excellent reddish brown. Slab-cut bows are not uncommon with Knopf, N.L. Tourte and the Dodd family. The thinnest part of the stick is around 10–20mm from the head; it is an old working technique in which the camber of the head is cut out.

John Dodd is known to have been using this technique as well.

HEAD

The model of the head is based upon a c.1790 Léonard Tourte model. The Knopf head could be seen as a caricature of the earlier one: the face is wide and more curved upwards with a sharp ridge. This, in my opinion, allows the bow to be dated between 1810 and 1820. Even in C.W. Knopf ’s most exquisite bows, the chamfers of the head are small and not evident, sometimes lacking all definition. Conversely, heads by the Tourtes usually have a very well-exposed chamfer. One of the reasons could be that a wide chamfer would weaken the mortise, which in German bows is mostly close to the back of the head. The length of the stick is 738mm, the maximum length of a Léonard Tourte and much longer than most Dodd bows.

Combined with a mortise placed at the end of the stick, like many F.X. Tourtes, this results in a long playing length, comfortable for legato passages. The mortise under the frog is very carefully chamfered at the ends, and wider than the under-facet of the stick, like old French bows.

BUTTON

The button of this bow is in three pieces with a wide ebony part: the proportion of some Tourtes around 1790. The outer silver ring is hammered in the same way as all other C.W. Knopf buttons, and pins are not visible.

WEIGHT

C.W. Knopf bows tend to be rather strong and heavy but they have a nice elasticity and playability. This bow has a weight of 60 grams with silk lapping. The head is quite heavy, which was common in transitional bows of this period. Cello bows can weigh upwards of 90 grams.