Books › Cremona violins. Four letters descriptive of those exhibited in 1873 at the South Kensington museum. Also giving the data for producing the true varnishes used by the great Cremona makers, 1900 › scan 31
Scan 31
Cremona violins. Four letters descriptive of those exhibited in 1873 at the South Kensington museum. Also giving the data for producing the true varnishes used by the great Cremona makers, 1900
9 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 25. See the scan on archive.org.
1freer from this defect than his imitators. He learned to varnish in Cremona, but his varnish is generally paler than the native Cremonese. This tenor is exceptional: it has a rose-coloured varnish that nothing can surpass. It is lovely.
3Sanctus Seraphin.—This is a true Venetian maker. The Venetian born was always half-Cremonese, half-German. In this bass, which is his uniform style, you see a complete mastery of the knife and the gauge. Neither the Stradiuarius nor the Amati ever purfled a bass more finely, and, to tell the truth, rarely so finely. But oh! the miserable scroll, the abominable sound-hole! Here he shows the cloven foot, and is more German than Stainer. Uniformity was never carried so far as by this natty workman; one violin exactly like the next; one bass the image of its predecessor. His varnish never varies. It is always slightly opaque. This is observed in his violins, but it escapes detection in his basses, because it is but slight, after all, and the wonderful wood he put into his basses, shines through that slight defect and hides it from all but practised eyes. He had purchased a tree or a very large log of it; for this is the third bass I have seen of this wonderful wood. Now-a-days you might cut down a forest of sycamore and not match it; those veteran trees are all gone. He has a feature all to himself; his violins have his initials in ebony let into the belly under the broad part of the tail-piece. This natty Venetian is the only old violin maker I know who could write well. The others bungle that part of the date they are obliged to write in the tickets. This one writes it in a hand like copper plate, whence I suspect he was himself the engraver of his ticket, which is unique. It is four times the size of a Cremonese ticket, and has a scroll border composed thus:—The sides of a parallelogram are created by four solid lines like sound-holes; these are united at the sides by two leaves and at the centre by two shells. Another serpentine line is then coiled all round them at short intervals, and within the parallelogram the ticket is printed:—
5Sanctus Seraphin Utinensis,
6Fecit Venetiis, anno 17—
8The Mighty Venetian.—I come now to a truly remarkable piece, a basso di camera that comes modestly into the room without a name, yet there is nothing except No. 91 that sends such
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.