Horst Prell Violin Bow In The Style Of His Father – Markneukirchen circa 1925-1930

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A well-preserved Horst Prell violin bow. Horst Prell (1899-1975) joined his father Hermann Prell’s firm during World War I as a young teen; somehow, he stayed out of the war and in 1925 when his father died, he took over the shop at 26 years of age. Horst ran the bow making firm until the early 1940’s.

Herman Prell, the father, studied for a few years in Paris with E. Sartory and the influence is seen in his father’s bows as well in Horst’s bow. Herman Prell learned the art of bow making in Markneukirchen from Henrich Hoyer between 1890 -1893. His journeyman’s years were spent working for Albert Nürnberger from 1893-1895 and August Rau in 1896. From 1897-1898 he was in Paris and then came back to set up his own shop in Markneukirchen in 1899. Horst Prell studied and was taught by his father. As a young apprentice he probably spent many hours roughing out sticks, prepping ivory tips, learning how to cut mortises, and perfect his chisel work. I’m sure his father gave him countless hours of practice in sharpening all of the tools. This is constant part of the trade no one sees or even talks about, but so important to detailed and clean bow work. Horst would have spent many hours studying frogs and roughing out frogs for the shop and learning how to fit a frog onto the octagon shape of the first 180.0 mm of a stick.

This violin bow is pernambuco, mounted in sterling silver, and in round section. The bow has an elegant head, a flat facial with a slightly elongated point to the tip. The head and tip are original to the bow The mother-of-pearl slide has a conical shape, and the wider end is mated to the wide ferrule. The silver heel is one-piece and held fast to the frog by pin work. The same delicate exquisite pin work also attaches the silver lining to the frog. The ebony blind eye frog is older dark wood and the shape, style, and size of his Markneukirchen training. The frog is exquisite, definitely made in the style of his day. The same can be said of the silver three-piece button. Fine work with a double turn in the collar and a smaller silver end, finished off with a pearl dot. The pernambuco wood is choice with medium-firm strength and beautiful orange/brown color. The craftsmanship of the bow shows his skill and is once again shows German pride and detail that matches easily the bow work coming out of France (my own opinion). I meticulously went over the entire bow, cleaning it well, reworked and restored the button, and replaced the leather thumb grip. Handmade bows from Markneukirchen are excellent and I have devoted much of my time here at the shop to collect, study, and restore hundreds of these fine bows. An excellent playing bow.

• The dimensions of the bow are 74.3 cm in length including the silver adjuster.
• The balance point is @ 24.3 cm.

Weight fully haired 56.5 grams