My Bows
I can make bows from most eras to your specifications. The bows with a clip-in frog have a very different feel under the hand than a screw frog.
For me, the idea of historical performance practice is that the choice of bow illuminates or suggests another way of playing, rather than replicating what one already knows.
I would recommend that if you choose a clip-in bow you keep them as fixed frog bows, but even in the 18th century people adapted clip-in bows to take ' new-fangled screws', so I also make them with screw fittings if so desired.
There are many different styles to choose from within each century- the pictures represent a small selection of what is available, or what it is possible for me to make.
Please do contact me either by email or phone for a chat about what you're looking for.
Baroque bows
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Snakewood clip in violin bow with snakewood frog. Modelled on an original italian baroque bow from 1700, owned in a private collection. Owned by Hannah Tibell for use with a baroque violin. | |
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Snakewood clip in violin bow with snakewood frog. Modelled on an original italian baroque bow from 1700, owned in a private collection. Owned by Persephone Gibbs, (Academy of Ancient Music, Gabrieli Consort, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) for use with a baroque violin. | |
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Snakewood baroque viola bow with snakewood frog. Modelled on an original italian baroque bow from 1720, owned in a private collection. Owned by a player from Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment. | |
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Snakewood clip in cello bow with snakewood frog. Modelled on an original italian baroque bow from 1700s, owned in a private collection. Owned by a period cellist in London. | |
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Snakewood screw-frog violin bow with box-wood frog. Modelled on an original high baroque bow in the Shrine to Music Instrument Museum. Owned by a period player from Norway. |
Medieval & Renaissance Bows
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Green ebony ("cocuswood") clip in violin bow with box-wood frog. Proportions modelled on a bow in the Vienna collection. Owned by Catherine Martin, for use with a Monteverdi violin. | |
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Boxwood, with bone tip and frog. After a painting by Judith Leyster, "de Fluitspeler", the Lowlands, 1660s Owned and played by Hannah Tibell, for use with her Monteverdi violin |
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Fruitwood, (cherry) clip-in viola bow, with cherry frog. Suitable for medieval and renaissance string instruments. |