POIRSON AND COLAS, THE FAIR AND THE PROSPEROUS

... and like every great story, even the one of the glorious "Atelier Vuillaume," has come to an end. After more than fifty years of business and having really created the great school of French bows, Jean Baptiste Vuillaume dies on March 19, 1875, bringing with him the grandeur of an era that  no one will touch anymore !

Violin bow by Dominique "Justin" Poirson 1890 ca.

In addition to its end , the story of the largest laboratory of all times, doesn't even do it very well. Dominique "Justin" Poirson, and Francois "Prosper" Colas, though good craftsmen, were not even the shadow of the great masters who had worked for J.B.V. in the golden years. We speak about them just because they were the last two bowmakers who worked for this great brand.

Dominique Poirson, aka "Justin": the desperate

Justin Poirson was born in Mirecourt by Joseph Poirson, winemaker and Marguerite Maire on August 3, 1851.
In '65 he is already in Paris to begin his apprenticeship with Nicolas Maire, despite the same surname he has no relationships with his mother.

The boy is smart and works well, so thanks to the proximity between Maire and Vuillaume, in 1870 he manages to enter the prestigious workshop.
He remains there until Vuillaume's death in '75, after which he moves to Gand et Bernardel Frères. During this period, he leaves Maire's school and gets attracted by the new taste of Francois Nicolas Voirin, whom he had personally met in the workshop by J.B.V.

In 1879 he opens his business , but unfortunately, besides not having a sublime talent, he was not that smart either. Our Fair one, like many of his colleagues, enjoyed wine, he only liked it a bit too much.

Because of this habit, the quality of his work decreases sharply after 1890 and he almost starts to live by wits and in 1925, he is found murdered inside a hut at Porte de Saint-Ouen, where he lived in miserable conditions.

The style

It depended a lot on what he had been drinking the night before or the morning for breakfast. There are some good bows of the first period in Voirin-style.

Francois "Prosper" Colas, the long-distance racer

Violin bow by Francois "Prosper" Colas 1895 ca.

Prosper is a very peculiar character, too, we do not known when he was born or when he exactly died. It is said that he was born in 1842 in Coincourt even if the mother marked him as Francois at the registry office only in 1861, nineteen years later.

He starts to become familiar with the job in one of the many laboratories at Mirecourt and often in those years and beyond, his work was confused with that one of his contemporaries: Francois Bazin, Pierre Cuniot, Clauude Husson.

 In '71, nearly thirty, he moved to Paris and Prosper improves his job by Vuillaume's workshop. At this time many of his bows are inspired by the great Jean Baptiste's school.
As already announced in the title, Colas is a long-distance racer, a methodical worker. He opens his own business almost immediately and begins to build bows for dealers and violin makers , hiring many workers.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the sixtyish Colas, is the owner of a brand that took a lifetime to be built, but he makes good bows in various models and trades with the most important laboratories of the time: P. Beuscher, Caressa et Francais, Cone in Lyon, Curtil in Paris , Delivet in Paris, Deuraine in Lyon, Jacquot in Nancy, Paul Jombar in Paris, H.C. Silvestre to Paris S. Wolf in Strasbourg.

Business was good for him.

He died in 1919, nobody knows where in the Paris area, and as Raffin says: "Together with his workers, he built a lot of good bows."
After his death the brand was bought by Feret-Marcotte, dealers of stringed and wind instruments. Some bows branded "Feret-Marcotte," are well-made and they come from bowmakers at Mirecourt like Pierre Maline, for example.

The style

It is difficult to define because of the many craftsmen who built for him, Prosper Colas with its production follows the current trends, taking inspiratione more or less freely from F. N. Voirin.

With these two last bowmakers as mentioned above , the era of the ruler Jean Baptiste Vuillaume comes to an end. In the coming weeks, we will step back and deal with some great ones who have never worked for him.

So long

Paolo