Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, 1864 › scan 76
Scan 76
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, 1864
8 lines. Read by computer on 24 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1appears a violin of Stradivarius, having within it a label written by the hand of the maker himself, and in which we read his name, his age (ninety-two years), and the date 1736. Stradivarius was therefore born in the year 1644.
3As a pupil of Nicholas Amati, he manufactured, in 1667—that is, at the age of twenty-three years—some violins which were merely the exact reproduction of the forms of his master, and in which he placed the label of Nicholas. It was not until 1670 that he began to sign his instruments with his own name. In the twenty years following, to 1690, he produced but few. We are inclined to think that the artist was then more occupied in meditations and experiments on his art, than on labours in a commercial point of view. In the disposition of the wood, cut on the layers (sur couche), in the pattern, in the arching and in the varnish, the instruments then made by Stradivarius are but little different from those of Nicholas Amati.
5The year 1690 is a very marked period of transition in the career of Anthony Stradivarius. It was then that he began to give greater amplitude to his model, to improve the arching, and to determine the various degrees of thickness in a more rigorous manner. His varnish became more highly coloured, and, in a word, his productions assumed a different aspect; but we still discern in them some traditions of the school of Nicholas Amati. Violin makers of the present day habitually designate them by the name of Stradivarius-Amatis.
7In 1700 the artist had attained to his fifty-sixth year; his talent was then in its full vigour, and from
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.