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Scan 167
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 153. See the scan on archive.org.
1his condemnation he said, alluding to his work on the tribunals: "We were hatchets; do you punish hatchets?" What a transposition! From a humble yet not unskilled maker of violins, and a servant of the most heavenly of all the Muses, to a dabbler in the blood of his fellow creatures!
3It is a relief to pass to the name of one of those who, with Lupot and Pique, commenced that brilliant period of the French school when the study of the old Cremonese makers was pursued with devotion, intelligence, and perseverance. Aldric worked a long time in Paris, the oldest ticket of his found being dated 1792, and he was engaged at his craft until 1840. His instruments are remarkably well made, and as remarkable in quality of tone. The varnish is generally red, somewhat thick, but agreeable to the eye. He made a great many new instruments, besides a number of tenors, which he fabricated in the cleverest manner and with great judgment out of old Italian viols.
5From the year 1789 until about 1820 there worked in Paris that masterly restorer Kolliker, to whom I have referred in my opening chapter. It was he who, innocently or otherwise, played that provoking practical joke on the world of violin fanciers by cutting down the viol, or viola, of Johann Kerlino and making it into a violin. It deceived Fetis, and still deceives, on paper, many others entitled to less sympathy. Kolliker appears to have been the beau idéal of a restorer, but he does not seem to have entirely made any violins himself. It is said that an instrument never left his hands without having been wholly righted by his own fingers, even to the placing of the bridge, the sounding
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