Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 116
Scan 116
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLINS IN FRANCE
3patch with counterfeit backs and bellies of his own—or to forge downright a whole antique, to be foisted upon some unwary but ill-informed enthusiast. But Vuillaume, to his honour be it said, soon discerned that the world at large could not be won by fraud, but that men were the slaves of imagination and sentiment. This timely and philosophic discovery made him famous and wealthy, almost at a bound. He loved the old Italian fiddles; he had the best opportunities of seeing them; his admirable technique enabled him to copy them accurately—to counterfeit the wear and tear, even the cracks and worm-holes, the inlaying, the rubbed varnish, the old wood; and for about five pounds, or even less, he proposed to provide people with new fiddles, which looked like old ones worth fifty or a hundred pounds.
5The device succeeded beyond the dreams of avarice. Orders poured in faster than they could be executed. Just look at the old man's face. Can you not see the shrewdness, betrayed by that slight pucker in the lip, which discovered and worked this now familiar tendency of human nature to possess what seems, if you can't afford to buy what is really good? It is the secret of cheap art, shoddy satsuma, coarse blue china, common silks, oleographs, and sham Palais Royal jewellery galore—every bazaar reeks with it; whilst the biggest warehouses are not above selling a made-up wine that deceives the palate, a walking-stick not ebony, only paint or stain, and furniture not really inlaid, but ditto ditto. So Vuillaume began early those amazing
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