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Scan 135
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 121. See the scan on archive.org.
1in the determination of the dimensions and proportions, and in the outward appearance of the finished work. There might be, as indeed there was, room for a certain amount of gradual and cautious discovery, but there was little or none for invention as to the main results to be obtained, Nature having done all that. A man who paints a picture so exactly like one by his master that no one can tell the difference is not considered to achieve a success equal to that of his tutor; but the man who makes a violin so exactly like a highest class Stradivari in every respect of wood, tone, and appearance, has done all that is required. A picture creates one set of impressions never again to be repeated by identical means, but it is eminently desirable that the merits of great violins be precisely repeated any number of times, and only by identical means. Considering the high position which genuine Amati and Stainer violins occupy, there can be no rational doubt that numbers of those turned out by the above makers have had their tickets removed or obliterated, and forged Amati and Stainer tickets substituted in their places. The accuracy with which these makes were copied, the amber varnish, and the intrinsic excellence of the instruments themselves, render it trebly hazardous, even for connoisseurs, to speculate trustingly in old violins. Cases, unknown to the outside world, are of frequent occurrence, in which nothing is more clearly revealed than the complete divergence of opinion which exists among most authoritative judges in these matters. Quite recently I knew of one such case, in which a Stradivari violin was the bone of contention, and I suppose the identity of the instrument remains to this hour unsettled, and yet the
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