A very nice Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume Violin, France's most influential and esteemed 19th century maker and inventor, entirely made by him in 1828, Paris, France. Openly powerful, robust, soloistic timbre, easy to play, petite neck. Length of back 359mm. With Florian Leonhard certificate.
About Jean-Baptiste: 
Vuillaume moved to Paris in 1818 to work for François Chanot. In 1821, he joined the workshop of Simon Lété, François-Louis Pique's son-in-law, at Rue Pavée St. Sauveur. His first labels are dated 1823.
Lété and Vuillaume became partners and in 1825 settled in the Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs under the name of "Lété et Vuillaume".
In 1827, at the height of the Neo-Gothic period, he started to make imitations of old instruments, some of which were identical to the originals.
In 1827, Vuillaume won a silver medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition. The following year, he started his own business at 46 Rue Croix des Petits-Champs. His workshop became the most important in Paris and within twenty years, it led Europe.
He won various gold medals in the competitions of the Paris Universal Exhibitions in 1839, 1844, and 1855. In 1851, he won the Council Medal in London was awarded the Legion of Honour.
In 1855, Vuillaume purchased 144 instruments made by Italian master luthiers, including the Messiah Stradivarius and 24 other Stradivari. He bought them for 80,000 francs from the heirs of Luigi Tarisio, an Italian tradesman.
In 1858, in order to avoid Paris customs duty on wood imports, he moved to Rue Pierre Demours near the Ternes, outside the city.
A maker of more than 3,000 instruments—almost all of which are numbered—and a fine tradesman, Vuillaume was also a gifted inventor, as his research in collaboration with the acoustics expert Félix Savart demonstrates. He developed many new instruments and mechanisms, most notably a large viola which he called a "contralto", and the three-string Octobass, a huge triple bass standing 3.48 metres high.
He also created the hollow steel bow (particularly appreciated by Charles de Bériot), and the 'self-rehairing' bow. For the latter, hair purchased in prepared hanks could be inserted by the player in the time it takes to change a string, and was tightened or loosened by a simple mechanism inside the frog. The frog itself was fixed to the stick, and the balance of the bow thus remained constant when the hair stretched with use.
He also designed a round-edged frog mounted to the butt by means of a recessed track, which he encouraged his bowmakers to use; other details of craft make it possible to identify the actual maker of many Vuillaume bows. The bows are stamped, often rather faintly, either "vuillaume à paris" or "j.b. vuillaume".
Other innovations include the insertion of Stanhopes in the eye of the frogs of his bows, a kind of mute (the pédale sourdine) and several machines, including one for manufacturing gut strings of perfectly equal thickness.
Many of the great bow makers of the 19th century collaborated with his workshop. Jean Pierre Marie Persois, Jean Adam, Dominique Peccatte, Nicolas Rémy Maire, François Peccatte, Nicolas Maline, Joseph Henry, Pierre Simon, François Nicolas Voirin, Charles Peccatte, Charles Claude Husson, Joseph Fonclause, Jean Joseph Martin, and Prosper Colas are among the most celebrated.
Vuillaume was an innovative violin maker and restorer, and a tradesman who traveled Europe in search of instruments. Most instruments by the great Italian violin makers passed through his workshop, where Vuillaume took accurate measurements of their dimensions and made copies of them.
He drew his inspiration from two violin makers and their instruments: Antonio Stradivari and his "Le Messie" (Messiah), and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù and his "Il Cannone" which belonged to Niccolò Paganini; others such as Maggini, Da Salò and Nicola Amati were also imitated, but to a lesser extent. He was undoubtedly the most influential 19th century figure for violin making and the trade.