Watch the Making of a Hand-Crafted Violin, from Start to Finish, in a Beautifully-Shot Documentary

The his­to­ry of the vio­lin can be traced back to 1530, when a vio­lin-like instru­ment first appeared in Gau­den­zio Fer­rar­i’s paint­ing, “Madon­na of the Orange Tree.” By the 1550s, Andrea Amati and his descen­dants began to craft price­less vio­lins, in the form we know them today. And then fol­lowed oth­er fam­i­lies close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the gold­en age of these stringed instruments–the Bergonzi, the Guarneri, the Stradi­vari.

Today, luthiers like Dominique Nicosia con­tin­ue the same tra­di­tion. Above you can watch Nicosia hand-craft a vio­lin at the Musée de la lutherie et de l’archè­terie français­es in north­east­ern France.

Shot by Bap­tiste Buob, the word­less doc­u­men­tary walks you through the mak­ing of a vio­lin, from start to fin­ish. A process that takes a luthi­er 3–4 weeks, work­ing full-time, gets cov­ered in 33 ele­gant min­utes. Savor each and every one of them.

Bonus: Below, watch anoth­er film by Bap­tiste Buob–this one a 28-minute film detail­ing how French bow mak­er Roch Petit­de­mange prac­tices his craft, again from begin­ning to end. A per­fect com­ple­ment.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Price­less 17-Cen­tu­ry Stradi­var­ius and Amati Vio­lins Get Tak­en for a Test Dri­ve by Pro­fes­sion­al Vio­lin­ists

What Does a $45 Mil­lion Vio­la Sound Like? Vio­list David Aaron Car­pen­ter Gives You a Pre­view

What Makes the Stradi­var­ius Spe­cial? It Was Designed to Sound Like a Female Sopra­no Voice, With Notes Sound­ing Like Vow­els, Says Researcher

The Art and Sci­ence of Vio­lin Mak­ing

Why Vio­lins Have F‑Holes: The Sci­ence & His­to­ry of a Remark­able Renais­sance Design

Behold the “3Dvarius,” the World’s First 3‑D Print­ed Vio­lin