WE Hill and Sons 12 Apostles Violin Cases
They don’t make the music, but they make sure the instrument reaches their audience. This London violin maker created some of the most beautiful cases ever made.
When is a package or container valued almost as much as its contents? One imagines Fabergé eggs as an unparalleled incarnation and celebration of the outside. On a much larger scale, some of the world’s great concert halls: the Concert Hall of the Congress and Culture Center in Lucerne, the Symphony Hall in Boston, the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Concert Hall in the City of Tokyo Opera and the City of Christchurch. Hall Auditorium (New Zealand) comes to mind: they are a kind of packaging for the impressive music created within its walls.
There are violin cases that are or were made to approximate the beauty and craftsmanship of the fine violins found within. Before the advent of scientifically based box details (moisture meters and the like), there were the 12 Apostles violin boxes made by WE Hill & Sons store in London. As the name implies, only a dozen were made (on New Bond Street, notably in the neighborhood of the Fabergé store), perhaps because few could afford the opulence and fine workmanship required to build these display cases.
Lest anyone question the value of a case, which does not produce music at all, consider the fact that one of the 12 Apostles was sold at auction in 2016 for $ 17,220.
The Hill family violin shop, run by founder Willam Ebsworth Hill (1817-1895), existed for 105 years (1887-1992), but was actually based on a history of luthiers dating back to Hill’s great-grandfather. The firm made violins and cellos, but was respected for its work on repairs, bows, accessories, identification and authentication, and ultimately for making fine cases.
The precious 12 Apostles were limited due to the extravagant time required to make them. The violin shop’s own brochure described them floridly: “In our opinion, the case containing a work of art as fine as a good violin should be nice and really beautiful … we strive, by using select wood and with ornamental inlays on the edges, and the highest quality workmanship throughout, to make them as beautiful as possible, and receptacles worthy of fine violins. “
That workmanship included handcrafted flush locks and bolts, a lined button (with cork) made to hold the bow, and intricate wooden patterns inlaid with musical motifs. All 12 are different, at least one case has its own leather cover, a case over a case, and several have held violins from the legendary violin maker, Antonio Stradivarius.
Such a rich detail in a case is not out of place, considering the time and place of the most accomplished violins, viola and cello of the moment. Great concerts were attended by the highest echelons of society from the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Higher still were the courts and palaces where the most sought after musicians of the Victorian era were, can you say Paganini? – would be hired to entertain private audiences. The etiquette of that time was terribly accurate; the arrival of the musician must clearly have been an observed and choreographed moment. Dressing in the finest clothing may also require an exquisite violin case.
Fine instrument cases, clearly the work of artists, do not have a rationale as does the work of acclaimed visual artists. Therefore, the precise whereabouts of Hill’s 12 apostles is unclear (based on an internet search). The 2016 auction price could have raised the profile of this rarefied group, enough that anyone who gets lost in an attic or orchestra hall storage room could show up in the future.