Giuseppe Antonio Ceruti

Son of Giovanni Battista Ceruti and father of Enrico , Giuseppe Antonio began working in his father's shop around 1805. His productive years of violin making are intermittent, and even after inheriting his father's business in 1817 he worked as a woodcarver ...Read More and double bass player in addition to making instruments. As a result, little of his work survives, and examples from the 1830s–40s are especially rare. In general his work follows his father's models closely. He began to sign his instruments only after his father's death, when he took up a more modern approach. He is said to have been a teacher of Gaetano Antoniazzi although no firm evidence connects the two makers. In 1838 Ceruti moved to Mantua with his family. He also appears to have spent some years in nearby San Benedetto in the early 1850s before returning to Mantua in 1856, remaining there until his death. A handful of instruments labeled Mantua survive, as well as one instrument with a manuscript label dated Bozzolo 1855; however, some of his instruments labeled 'Cremonensis' with no city indicated could also date from his period in Mantua. Read Less