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Scan 189
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 175. See the scan on archive.org.
1existence are held in considerable esteem. A sculptor in Ghent, named Franck, turned fiddle maker, or, rather, repairer, working from 1800 to 1830. He is reported to have been clever, but to have made few new works. Another repairer of some celebrity, in the same town, and at the same time, was one Lambin. At Antwerp there was a John Baptist van der Slaghmeulen, and from 1730 to 1760, one Willems, who imitated the Italians well. There are in existence numerous violins by him, having a reddish-brown varnish. One of the best of the old Belgian makers was Hoffmann, of Antwerp. He dates from 1700 to about 1725, and his work is distinguished by first-class treatment in imitation of Amati and Joseph del Jesu. He left many instruments, and there are still a number existing, having a warm red-brown varnish, very like the Italian violins of that time.
3The earliest Dutch maker of any importance was Jan Boumeester, who was in Amsterdam in the early years of the seventeenth century. M. Vidal possessed a violoncello by him which, he says, was very well made, of a large pattern, with yellow varnish, and having a carved head. It had the following ticket inside: "Jan Boumeester me fecit, in Amsterdam, anno 1637." Gysbert Vibrecht, in the same place, about 1710, was a maker of whom little or nothing is known. From 1720 to about 1740 there was one Lefebvre, in Amsterdam. He appears to have been a Frenchman, and it is conjectured that he learnt his trade in Italy, as the violins by him which are still in existence display a class of work of much greater excellence than that produced in France at the same period. His instru-
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