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Scan 89
Antonio Stradivari, 1900
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1highly prized. Here and there were the studs or buttons of various kinds of pine stuck by repairers of different nationalities and degrees of skill, some placed with apparent good intention, others without reason at all, while several parts bore indications of studs having at one time rested there and been afterwards removed by succeeding repairers. Now all these men had a thought of doing their work properly, and in finishing off their studs with gouge or glass-paper, had whipped off around each spot some of the precious wood of Stradivari, with a general result of a series of hollows and gentle prominences not at all pleasing to the eye of the believer in the thickness theory, but nevertheless instructive.
3Other instances in which the master's work—while still good and serviceable, with much evidence of unskilful repair, or want of proper attention at the time of accident, have come under my notice, enough, long ago, to have, as the saying is, "knocked into a cocked hat," all that has been put forth regarding the mathematical precision of the thicknesses over the different parts of a violin by Antonio Stradivari. One or two further remarks may be interesting on this part of our subject. The fact must not be lost sight of that the pupils of the now well established master of his art in Cremona were working either at that place likewise, or in the large cities of Italy, and had become famous, or were soon to be so and themselves surrounded by learners of the art. All these had been initiated in the secrets, if any, of their craft and in the particulars which distinguished them from others, or we may say, they were of the Stradivari school, showing in a more or less degree the same species of tone which the master had brought to maturity, and which he retained with consistency and never swerved from to his latest day.
5It is quite a reasonable supposition that most, if not all, of the personal pupils were taught by the master, or had the way pointed out to them by which they might, with the right ear for discrimination of tone quality and enough of industry, impart to their works
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