Charles Jean-Baptiste Collin-Mézin père

Bow maker / Violin maker
(1841 – 1923)

Charles Jean-Baptiste Collin-Mézin was one of the most successful French violin makers of the late nineteenth century. Born in Mirecourt on 12 November 1841, he was the son and pupil of Claude Nicolas Collin. He adopted the name Collin-Mézin, incorporating his mother's family name, and after his initial training worked in Brussels with Nicolas François Vuillaume before establishing himself in Paris ...Read More in 1867.

His workshop remained throughout his career on the rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, moving successively between several addresses as the business expanded. Collin-Mézin built his reputation both as a maker and as a restorer, working principally from classical Italian models, particularly those of Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati. His instruments are generally distinguished by precise, highly finished workmanship and a characteristic hard spirit varnish ranging from golden yellow to reddish brown. He commonly signed or stamped the interior of the back near the soundpost in addition to using a printed label, an important distinction given the large number of later commercial instruments bearing his name.

Collin-Mézin enjoyed considerable contemporary success. He received distinctions at the Paris exhibitions of 1878, 1879, 1889 and 1900, and in 1884 was appointed an Officier d'Académie. His instruments found favour with prominent musicians of the period, and his clientele included such violinists as Joseph Joachim and Camillo Sivori.

Although his production became substantial, the best instruments made personally under his direction retain a strongly individual character and stand well above the ordinary Mirecourt trade work of the period. Collin-Mézin also made bows and maintained an important restoration business. His son, Charles Louis Collin-Mézin, subsequently joined and continued the family enterprise, establishing the Collin-Mézin name as one of the most recognizable French violin-making brands of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

A hard spirit varnish — most often golden, sometimes a light reddish-brown — covers his genuine instruments, which he took the added precaution of stamping "Collin-Mézin" beside the soundpost as well as labelling in full: his name had grown valuable enough in the trade to be widely counterfeited, and a great many cheap, factory-built instruments carrying it never passed through his workshop at all. Read Less

Price History

- The auction record for this maker is $62,864 in Mar 2023, for a cello.
- 198 auction price results.

View all auction prices for Charles Jean-Baptiste Collin-Mézin père

Collin-Mézin family tree

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