Samuel (Samu) Nemessányi

Violin maker
(1837 – 1881)

Leading Hungarian violin maker Samuel Nemessanyi apprenticed with Thomas Zach and Johann Baptist Schweitzer in Pest before moving in 1858 to Prague, where he worked for Anton Sitt, gaining first-hand experience with fine Italian violins. Two years later ...Read More he returned to Hungary and worked in various towns before settling in Pest, where he lived through multiple marriages, many children, financial tumult, and emotional instability, all the while enjoying success as the city's best maker and restorer until his premature death in 1881.

Nemessanyi employed several assistants, including respected Hungarian maker Béla Szepessy. A skilled copyist of Stradivari and Guarneri, Nemessanyi's unlabeled instruments were often later falsely identified as Italian, and his own work in turn has been extensively forged. In certain periods he also refinished manufactured Bohemian instruments, which bear the labels of the factories. Thus, known examples of his original work are rather rare, perhaps numbering around 70 in total. After 1863 they usually bear printed labels, and very occasionally a brand. The materials are superb, and workmanship is precise and personal. Read Less