Marc Laberte Violin, Mirecourt, France c.1945
Marc André Joseph Laberte (29 May 1880 – 29 March 1963) was born into a family of violin makers. His great-grandfather started a workshop in Mirecourt around 1780. He married Marie Adeline Josephine Thérèse Drouin on 21 May 1904. After she passed away, he married Geneviève Josephine Paule Francine Thouvenin on 15 April 1912 in Besançon. They had a daughter named Claude on 6 June 1916.
Marc Laberte was a skilled luthier and bow maker who played an active role in the Laberte-Humbert Frères company starting in 1911. The workshop, which employed over 300 people by 1920, produced a wide range of high-quality instruments and bows. The workshop also owned a fine collection of instruments from famous makers, which were used as models for their own instruments. After being disrupted by the war, production resumed until the workshop eventually closed down.
Humbert Frères developed high-quality instruments alongside its “workshop-like” production. Instruments bearing the Laberte Humbert or Marc Laberte label are always of the highest standard. These best instruments were produced by a small team of skilled craftsmen known as “l’Atelier des Artistes”. Georges Apparut was in charge of this “artistic” production.
This violin has the original Marc Laberte label and bears the number #3010. A second label states Grand Prix Paris 1931, Exposition Internationale Bruxelles 1935 Membre Du Jury, and Exposition Internationale New York 1939. The prices they won before and during the start of the world war 2.
