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Scan 190
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 176. See the scan on archive.org.
1ments are modelled on the Amati pattern, and have very good yellow varnish. Contemporaneously with Lefebvre, Peeter Rambouts flourished in Amsterdam, He made very good violins, tenors, and violoncellos, but was not particularly successful with his varnish, which is thick and highly coloured. Peeter Jacobs, at Amsterdam, about 1700, was another good maker who imitated the model of Nicolas Amati very successfully. The varnish is reddish-brown. Some ordinary makers in Holland were in the habit of purfling or inlaying their violins with whalebone instead of ebony, and Jacobs followed this example, which has lowered the value of his work. Many violins by Jacobs are still in the market. The cleverest Dutch maker is said to have been Jean Koeuppers, who worked at the Hague from 1760 to about 1780. A large number of his instruments are also in existence. I have never seen any of them, but they are said to be very well made, though having a disagreeable thick yellow varnish.
3The violin making of some continental countries, besides those already named, has been so slightly developed, or has attracted so little attention, that nothing can really be said about it. In Spain I have only met with two names, viz: Joseph Contreras, in Madrid, in the first half of the eighteenth century. He is reported to have made copies of Stradivari so skilfully, and so fine in quality of tone, that they readily passed for genuine works by that master, and were sold as such. A date given to him is 1746. The other maker is Carole Razenzo, of Barcelona, about 1700. He appears to have been an Italian. Sweden furnishes one maker, named Sweno Beckmann, who worked in Stockholm
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