Our understanding of the use of Pernambuco wood for violin bow making suggests that it did not really come into vogue until the end of the eighteenth century and the time of the François Xavier Tourte. It is certainly not expected to find pernambuco bows from before then, but an understanding of the trade routes and variables of these woods helps us to build a bigger picture. Elsewhere I have written in greater detail about the travels of the English physician Edward Browne, and the concerns in his travel diaries for natural and scientific curiosities that he could report back to the newly founded Royal Society in London. An unexpected clue comes from his desciption of his journey through Amsterdam in 1668. I have decided to quote what I may, and if anyone wants to follow through further – be my guest. This excerpt comes from An Account of Several Travels Through a great part of Germany, published in 1677 (Page 11).
But to proceed to other publick Buildings in this City. The Tuchthuis or Raspelhuis, or House of Correction for debauched young men, such as are incorrigible and disobedient to Parents or Laws, hath at the entrance of the Gate two Lions bridled, a proper Embleme, with this Inscription, Virtutis est domare quae cuncti pavent. This was formerly a Monastery belonging to the Nuns of the Order of St. Clare, and converted to this use 1595. They who are put in, are forced to work and gain their Bread with hard labour. I saw those who rasped Brazil, having a certain task set them every day, work so hard, that being naked and in a sweat, and the dust of the Brazil wood flying upon them, they were all over painted of a beautiful red colour. Which odd sight made me call to mind the Phansie of my Lady Marchioness of Newcastle, of a Nation wherein the People were of Orange-tawny colour, and the King of Purple.
Anyone who has been in the presence of bowmakers may recognise something of this description – of course I mean the red-colour stains, not the incorigible nature of them, and so we can be confident that the trade in pernambuco wood to Amsterdam was happening in the middle of the seventeenth century. There are undoubtedly other Dutch sources that may bring more light onto this. Browne’s description is fairly accurate. The “Tuchthuis” had been established as a house of correction in 1596 in the former Clarissen monasterey on the Heiligeweg, and in 1602 the city authorities had granted it the monopoly for rasping brazil wood, from whence it became known as the Rasphuis. Although the concept of the tuchthuis had been to take boys who had gone astray and put them to work there so that they could return to society as hardworking and virtuous men. Soon, however, the city government also exploited them as cheap labour. Moreover, to serve as a deterrent, Amsterdam residents and tourists were allowed to pay a fee to come and look at the prisoners covered with red dye. The Rasphuis therefore became one of the most important sights in the city.
A handful of engravings from the seventeenth century give an idea of the conditions in which rasping Brazil wood and corporal punishment were enacted.
The prison was finally closed in 1815, but a watercolour dated to just before it’s closure still shows wood stacked for use. Some assumptions are made about dye-makers in Paris serving as a source for Tourte’s bow-making, but in the complex world of European trade, the Rasphuis is one of the many stones to turnover in understanding the early history of bowmaking.
