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Scan 280
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 266. See the scan on archive.org.
1exercise of the very quality which they so highly prized. That kind of copal which is here known by the names of "dammar," "Indian copal," and "gum animi," and which is a product of the Vateria Indica, one of the Sumatra-camphor family of trees, was, in former times, called "white amber," as was likewise a mixture of oil and Grecian wax, to which they also gave the name of "amber varnish," and it is not unlikely that the error in description may have so arisen, for it is pretty nearly certain now that what we call amber was not in use as a material for the manufacture of varnish during and anterior to the time of Stradivari. The researches made in this direction yield very strong evidence that they then did not know how to solve amber or the hard copal of Calcutta, and that they did not employ these substances in their varnishes. Indeed the proof of this latter position is almost conclusive. For example, a violin by the brothers Amati (Hieronymus and Antonius) was rubbed with a moist linen cloth until the surface warmed and gave off the peculiar odour of mastic mixed with that of linseed oil. A Joseph (son of Andrew) Guarnerius, treated in the same manner, yielded the odour of benzoin, as did also a Joseph del Jesu. Other two instruments by this last maker, when submitted to the same process, gave off the odour of mastic and linseed oil, as in the case of the brothers Amati. From these and other experiments it is evident that the Cremonese makers did not always employ the same materials in their varnishes, and that they always employed the soft resins, such as mastic, sandarach, benzoin, and perhaps, soft copal or dammar. In no case did the operator detect
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