What this site covers
A reference on pernambuco, the violin bow, its makers and its conservation record.
Pernambuco — Paubrasilia echinata — is the Brazilian hardwood every violin bow is made from. It gave Brazil its name through the colonial dye trade, and it gave the bow its modern form when François Xavier Tourte settled the proportions of the cambered stick around 1785.
The site is organised in five sections: the bow itself and how its parts work; the makers with a documented record; the regulatory and conservation record from the IUCN assessment through the CITES listings of 2007 and 2022; the published measurements of the wood and its substitutes; and the collections — public, planted and wild — where the material is held.
Twenty-seven pieces, each built on named people, named institutions and dated documents. Figures are attributed to the assessment, listing or study they come from.