The city of Paris as Gläsel would have known it in 1913
Markneukirchen, the Mirecourt of Germany, dominated the international market of musical instrument sales in the second half of the 19th century. It proved to have better access to exotic woods and was at one time one of the most affluent cities in Germany – it even had its own US consulate general. Nevertheless, while much of the town focused on mass production of musical instruments, a few dedicated makers pursued their craft elsewhere. The advances made in French bow manufacturing by luminaries such as François Xavier Tourte, Étienne Pajeot, Dominique Peccatte and François Nicolas Voirin (known as the ‘modern Tourte’), attracted many of Germany’s finest makers, such as George Gemünder, H.R. Pfretzschner and Johann Christoph Nürnberger, who for five years worked as assistant to Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. From that time onwards, many of Germany’s best and brightest makers looked to Paris to broaden their knowledge of the French bow making tradition.
Richard Otto Gläsel was one such disciple of the craft. He was an assistant of Claude Thomassin in Paris before returning to Germany just before the outbreak of war in 1914. The experience apparently left him an avowed Francophile, as his bows frequently display the brand ‘O. GLÈSEL’ – the ‘Frenchified’ version of his name.