PAJEOT OR PAGEOT

Etienne Pajeot is recognized as one of those who did some of most beautiful work of is time, and, far from the great Masters of the capital as he was, it remains a mystery as to where he drew his inspiration. He was perhaps a genius. (J.F. Raffin)

Etienne Pajeot - Cello bow ca. 1815

Looking at the work and the evolution of his bows, one can only agree with the opinion expressed by Maestro Raffin. Even if the genius of Etienne Pajeot follows a direction that is a little bit different from craftsmen of his level. But I will talk about this in the next post, now a little bit of genealogy.

Firstly, there are two Pajeot: Etienne, the most popular and  Louis Simon, his father and it is with the latter that the profession of bowmaker begins, although he probably was not the teacher of the son.

Louis Simon Pajeot was probably born in Grenoble in 1759 by Dominique Francois Pageot (The misunderstanding is probably due to the pronunciation of the two very similar names. Today it is believed that the true one is Pajeot, although both the certificate of marriage, than that of death bear the surname Pageot) and Catherine Roussel, and in his early age he moved to Mirecourt to learn the profession of bowmaker. .

Owing to the difficulty in obtaining information from that era, very little is known of this craftsman. The years in which he moved to Mirecourt are a decade prior to those one of the bloody revolution of 1789, a disturbance of this kind of course causes a lot of confusion as a side effect also from an administrative point of view.

Firstly , no one knows with whom he studied. Probably he attended some workshops in Mirecourt, although there he didn't learn much (except how to use the tools), since in those years the modern bow by F.X. Tourte was starting, and no one apart him had begun to experiment these new shapes. One can only try to guess how things might have gone.

The first bows of which there is a witness are modern from a mechanical point of view , but not yet as far as the style is concerned ,they seemed bastard, so to say. It was as if there were some spies in Paris, who observed the work of the great Tourte and his older brother's to bring back what they saw by the manufacturers in Mirecourt.

The ridge of the head backs off a lot and the bevel withdraws in comparison with Cramer's model, although it is still rather large and stocky. The frog is considerably lower than that one of neo-classical bows , even if retaining some inlaids with mother of pearl, gold or silver and ebony , peculiar of the immediately prior models (Note: About this type of embellishment, a kind of stylized sun, we know for sure that it was not carried out by L.S. Pajeot, but by a goldsmith named Sieur Frichot, that patented it in 1825 in Mirecourt). The button is also decorated with marquetry, but much more similar than the other parts to that one of Tourte, though a little bit longer.

The first bows that are known are dated between 1785 and 1790, the same period in which he began to stamp them and just from the stamp a rather embarrassing misunderstanding came out: a third Pajeot!

Sidney Bowden, in his book dedicated to the family Pajeot, is misled by a fire brand by Louis Simon; "PAJEOT. AMT. " By exchanging the "M" for "N", he attributes some of his bows to a distant relative of Antoine Francois Pajeot , whose job was "Wine merchant" and he justifies it arguing that this job may be practiced only at certain times of the year. In the other periods, by his opinion, he was making bows, perhaps among the barrels in his cellar.

There is however another explanation: Raffin and Millant give it to us in their book. The stamp is not "ANT ", like Antoine, but "AMT" and it means " In Mirecourt" the city where he worked, partly because to stamp Louis Simon Pajeot Fecit A Mirecourt, the whole stick would haven't been enough!

The pretty materialistic character of Louis Simon, can be guessed from his behavior in his private life. On January 25th , 1791 Etienne, the first child who will become the great bowmaker as we know it, was born ,and six days later, on 30th , his mother, Barbe Catherine Rellot, died of complications from childbirth. The inconsolable Louis , broken and desperate for his lost love marries Anne Pilon on September 13th of the same year, with whom , over the next eleven years, gives birth to five children more !

Also the date of Pajeot's father death is shrouded in mystery. It is thought that he died at the age of forty or forty-five years, in 1804, but the date is somewhat uncertain because in 1793 the Republican Calendar come into force by the National Conference, which takes as its starting date of the year September 22 ,the Autumn Equinox. The new calendar consists of twelve months of thirty days, and the remaining six do not not exist, after that the Republic is celebrated throughout France and then all starts again!

The life of the little Etienne becomes more and more complicated. Already without a mother and five siblings and a stepmother, at the age of thirteen is also without a father and being the oldest one he has to take the responsibility of his father's work. But that's another story and I will tell it to you the week next.

Unfortunately, the bows built by Louis Simon Pajeot are very few and very difficult to find, think that in Bowden's book, devoted to the family, only three of them have been photographed and unfortunately I have to comply with copyrights laws so I can not scan and let you see them .

So long.

Paolo.