Books › A short account of a violin by Stradivari, dated 1690 : now in the possession of Messrs. W. E. Hill & sons, 1889 › scan 14
Scan 14
A short account of a violin by Stradivari, dated 1690 : now in the possession of Messrs. W. E. Hill & sons, 1889
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1see and handle a violin just as it left his workshop; for, excepting only the longer neck and larger bass-bar demanded by the increased compass and elevated pitch of modern times, it is almost absolutely in the same state as when it received the last finishing touches from Stradivari himself. The delicate surface of the matchless orange-red-brown varnish shows scarcely a sign of the wear of the two centuries passed since it was first laid on; and even the exposed projecting lines of the scroll, which in old violins, almost without exception, have lost the original dark varnish used to pick them out, are here very little rubbed, and the lines remain almost as fresh and distinct as if the instrument were a new one.
3The violin was made in 1690, when Stradivari had been for some ten years established for himself, in his house in the Piazza San Domenico. At this time he was far advanced in what is known as his second period, in which his innate genius, matured by experience, freed him from the direct influence of his master, Amati, and enabled him to carry into successful execution the original conceptions which were the true foundation of his great fame.
5Although the work of Stradivari may broadly speaking be divided into periods, the instruments made in any one of these were not mechanically precise reproductions of one another, but were, for the most part, independent creations; and many of those belonging to the earlier periods foreshadowed the higher developments of form to which he afterwards attained.
7This instrument in particular shows how little fettered he was, even at this time, by the early influence of Amati, and marks his advance towards the culmination of his creative
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.