There is a legendary ancestor, one Jean Vuillaume, who was supposedly a pupil of Stradivari, but this remains a legend, and perhaps was invented as a joke.
[2] From the start, J.B. Vuillaume was the boldest, most audacious and most business-like of the family, moving to Paris at the age of 19, where he worked first in the workshops of François Chanot and Lete, and joining them in partnership before finally setting up his own.
[4] Examples attributed to NFV as late as 1857 imply that he continued to supply instruments to JBV in addition to those made in his brother's substantial workshop.
In his earlier years he appears to have favoured instruments in the style of Giovanni Paolo Maggini, while later on he moved more towards Stradivari models.
Vuillaume operated as a dealer as well as maker and, though never approaching his brother's legendary cache of Cremonese instruments, records on Cozio indicate that the Stradivari cello "General Kyd" (1684) was bought by N.F.
Vuillaume's business and title as "Luthier du Conservatorie Royal de Musique Bruxelles" had been taken on by Georges Mougenot.
A double bass by Georges Mougenot labeled from 1875, the year he took over the shop of NFV in Brussels, reads as the "Royal Maker of Liege".