1950 Robert Bouchet SP/CSAR

This 1950 Robert Bouchet is a spruce and CSA rosewood classical guitar made in Paris – an early Bouchet, built just four years after his very first guitar.

An Early Bouchet from 1950

Bouchet built his first guitar in 1946 and only about 150 in his whole life, so a guitar from his first years is a rare find. This one carries his printed label – "Robert Bouchet à Paris, 189 rue Ordener" – with the year 1950 written in by hand.

A Collector's Bouchet

Bouchets rarely come up for sale, and an early one like this – from the very first years of the French school – is a real piece of guitar history.

Robert Bouchet: From Painter to Guitar Maker

Robert Bouchet (1898–1986) was a Paris painter who became one of the most influential guitar makers of the twentieth century and the founding father of what is called today the "French school of guitar making". He took up the guitar in 1932 and became a friend of Julián Gómez Ramírez, a Spanish maker in Paris trained in the José Ramírez I workshop in Madrid, whose workshop he often visited. When he lost the guitar Gómez Ramírez had made for him, he decided to build one himself – in 1946, at the age of 48. In all he made only 154 instruments.

Founder of the French School

Bouchet's reputation quickly attracted some of the greatest players to his workshop: Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya, Emilio Pujol, Oscar Ghiglia, Turíbio Santos, Manuel López Ramos and Julian Bream. His innovations, including the famous "barre d'âme" in the soundboard bracing, left a lasting mark on guitar making, and the guitars of Daniel Friederich and many later French makers grew from his school. Bouchets are in the top tier of collectible classical guitars, along with Antonio de Torres and Hermann Hauser I.

Books on Robert Bouchet

Alberto Martínez's bilingual book is the most complete look at Bouchet's life and work, and a 1959 Bouchet is among the guitars shown in Orfeo's "34 Classical Guitars in Life Size":

Robert Bouchet 1898-1986: Peintre & Luthier

Orfeo – 34 Classical Guitars in Life Size