Mittenwald is situated in the Northern Karwendel Mountains of Bavaria, a region that yielded excellent tone woods for a thriving luthier trade. Most auspicious for the luthier craft was Mittenwald’s proximity to Northern Italy. It is no coincidence that early in the nineteenth century, many of Mittenwald’s most successful makers, as well as many Viennese luthiers, built their instruments based on Italian design.
Joseph Mathias Neuner III (1762–1830) of Mittenwald was part of the Neuner dynasty, which traced its roots back to the seventeenth-century luthier, Mathias Neuner I.