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Scan 90
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 76. See the scan on archive.org.
1decadence in the quality of his work which appear to have arisen about the time Fetis wrote, and to have been propagated from mouth to mouth ever since. It is indeed curious that previous writers—at least, such as I am acquainted with—do not appear to have seen any violins of Stradivari dating after 1725. It is, however, only fair to state that, prior to the researches of Lombardini, the date of Stradivari's death was supposed to have been much earlier than it really was, and this circumstance may have thrown discredit on any instrument claiming to have been made later. The truth as regards the violin above referred to would really appear to be that it was never seen at all by any of those who first called attention to it, and, as far as I know, its possessor has not yet been traced. Perhaps the instrument itself is no longer in existence, although the conclusions now drawn from it harmonise with all the other known facts of Stradivari's life. The theories about these inferior instruments of Stradivari have a striking resemblance to those regarding the "prison Josephs." Only one instrument dating after 1725 was exhibited at South Kensington; it was a specimen of the "grand pattern," and appears to have been highly enough appreciated, as it was bought from Signor Piatti for £200, a very fair price for it in the days of its transfer. The most regrettable result of these conjectures is that they have a tendency to widen the area available for fraud, so long as so much importance is attached to a mere name, apart from the intrinsic qualities of the fiddles which bear them, and it is reasonable to hope that further knowledge of the subject will tend to detach from these specimens of Stradivari's deca-
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