This bass is a mystery, my instinct tells me French, the body shape strongly seems French to me, but the F- holes really make it unusual. I think that I would really like to see it up close, mostly for the scroll and purfling. A friend of mine just picked a bass similar to this, in that it also has characteristics of English and French bass. The dealer was saying it was a English bass made for the French market. When I play it though and looked a bit closer it just seemed like it had to be French. Seems you might have a mystery on your hands similar to mine. Here is an Xavier Jacquet, his basses are also very similar to Barbe's, I have even compared two and they were identical almost.
http://www.worldofbasses.de/Instrume...Pillement.html
They are different, but similar in some ways as well. Granted it could just be my eyes and digital pictures not agreeing well. Right now, just by what I can see of the purfling I think this bass might be just at the turn of the 19th century or earlier.
