A Fine Parisian Violin After Seraphin By Leonidas Nadegini, 1928.

Jean-Baptiste Leonidas Nadegini (1881-1939) was born in Ukraine and apprenticed with his father, Alessandro Salvatore Nadegini, an Italian violin maker who emigrated to Russia. Leonideas Nadegini then joined the employ of Salzard’s successor in Moscow, Frantisek Spidlen (1867-1916), a Bohemian artisan who spent a decade catering to Russian aristocracy in addition to working as the Imperial Conservatory’s official luthier, purportedly crafting more than 400 instruments during his tenure. In 1907, Nadegini was awarded a Gold Medal for Sonority at a competition in Saint Petersburg, sometime after which he left for Paris, where he established an independent workshop, relocating again within the city in 1912, 1918, and 1930. Though he was highly prolific in his own right, he developed a competitive line of trade instruments, produced by the workshop of Amadee Dieudonne in Mirecourt. He sometimes used the pseudonyms “Corolla” and “Corolia,” and was known to collaborate with Marcel Laisne and Paul Audinot-Mourot. Bows bearing his name or pseudonyms were largely made by the workshop of Jerome Thibouville Lamy, but notable examples by the hands of Charles Louis Bazin and Victor Fetique suggest a wider catalogue of offerings. Nadegini developed a successful personal model for his violas in collaboration with Maurice Vieux, professor at the Paris Conservatory; violins, of mostly classical modeling which included a lauded interpretation of Sanctus Seraphin.

This fine Parisian violin is a highly characteristic representation of both Leonidas Nadegini’s personal work and also his famed Seraphin model. Crafted in 1928, it demonstrates both his artistic selection of tone-woods and the consummate finesse in stylizations of a maker at the height of his oeuvre in every detail.