Ludwig Aschauer Violin– Made for William Moening & Son Mittenwald 1947 – CURRENTLY OUT ON TRIAL –

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Handmade violin by Leo (Ludwig) Aschauer of Mittenwald Germany. Ludwig, also called Leo, was the master violin maker and head of the Mittenwald Violin Making School directly after World War II. He is the person credited for saving the violin making school and industry in southern Germany. When makers and their families needed it the most after WW II, Leo arranged the sale of everything that was made by the young luthiers and himself to get sold overseas to generate some kind of income when many families in the industry suffered greatly because of deaths of husbands and sons and total economic failure. This is a gorgeous violin that had a neck graft when it was originally made and the pegs bushed at the same time . For clarity, this was done at the time the violin was first imported to America and purchased by William Moening Violin Shop of Philadelphia. The extra work was done in the Moening workshop to help clarify and distinguish the different levels of violins coming from Mittenwald. The LA brand below the saddle on the rib also clarifies that this is from Leo Aschauer’s hand – Wow!

The instrument wood is choice. A two-piece maple back plate, highly flamed. The top plate has a gorgeous straight even grain spruce and the ribs, neck, and scroll jump with choice woods that makers today would give one of their arms for. I have kept the original bridge that I found with the violin. It works well and is branded with the William Moening name and was made in the late 1940’s. I carved a new set of ebony pegs for the violin, cambered the board, and reworked the nut. The oil varnish is a golden orange/brown. It is sweet and shows some signs of natural patina from playing wear. This violin oozes quality and sounds better than it looks

Corpus 360.0 mm., Major Width 208.0 mm., Minor Width 166.0 mm., Rib Height 29.5 mm.