Amati > Makers Archive > Didier L’Aine Nicolas

Didier L’Aine Nicolas

Highest auction price

£1,954

Auction price history

Type	Details	Sold	Price
Violin	One-piece back of faint medium fine curl, varnish of a plum red colour on a golden ground	Sun 1st September 2024	£1,037
Violin	Bearing the maker's brand, many table restaurations, button blemish	Sat 1st June 2024	£639
Violin	Bearing the maker's brands, minor lower rib blemish	Sat 1st June 2024	£1,954
Violin	Bearing the maker's brand, some table and back restorations	Sat 1st June 2024	£1,012
Violin	Bearing the maker's brand, fair condition	Sat 1st June 2024	£1,749
Violin	Bearing a restoration inscription dated 1883, old table restorations, pegs and saddle missing, ribs worm	Wed 1st May 2024	£260
Violin	36.5 cm Mirecourt, Late 19th C. [Workshop of]	Fri 1st July 2011	£1,249

Biographies

John Dilworth George Hart Cecie Stainer Willibald Leo Lütgendorff

John Dilworth

Didier (l’aîné) Born 1757, died 1833. Known as ‘le Sourd’ (‘the deaf one’). Son of Antoine Nicolas, above. Highly prolific and commercial maker. The best work has his signature on the label and are good representations of the Stradivari pattern with rather large open and broadly spaced soundholes and red-brown varnish. A second category of production has a thin yellow varnish and is in general the work of his employees. By 1810 his workshops employed around 500 craftsmen. All the instruments made are of effective rather than artistic workmanship, and on a slightly oversized pattern. Many small violas also produced. Branded within the back in pace of the label ‘A la Ville de Cremonne’ (sic), arranged in triangular form. The business was continued after Didier’s death by his son Joseph, below, and even after Joseph’s death in 1864 the distinctive triangular brand was continued by Derazey and later passed to Laberte and Magnie of Mirecourt who carried on making violins in the Didier Nicolas style well into the 20th century. Signed internally on the treble side: ‘D. Nicolas aîné à Mirecourt’