Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 219
Scan 219
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
16 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3excusable margin left for honest error, especially when personal interest is on the side of error.
5I have very little doubt that my old friend, the late Mr. Cox, well known as an acute picture dealer, really believed in a certain violin which he called the Red Knight. He bought it at the great sale of Gillott's fiddles as a rare Joseph Guarnerius.
7I would never tell the old man to his face that his Joseph was a very plausible red Landolpho copy of Joseph, and I was even weak enough to allow it to lie on the table of the Royal Institution side by side with the "Dolphin," Enthoven's Maggini, the Emperor of Russia's Strad, a genuine Nicolas, a Joseph and a Jacob Stainer; in short, the Red Knight lay by favour for one evening in company with some twenty gems of worldwide reputation.
9In the course of my lecture, to please my old friend, I took up the Red Knight, remarking, "Here is a fine violin labelled Joseph Guarnerius, once the property of Mr. Gillott, now owned by Mr. Cox." I said no more.
11A few weeks afterwards the Red Knight was sold for £300, partly on the strength of my having vouched for it at the Royal Institution.
13Meanwhile the Jupiter of judges, William Ebsworth Hill, had been consulted by the purchaser, who, on finding that he had only got hold of a Landolpho, wanted his money back.
15I think they would have gone to law if they could have counted on me as a witness; but when I was
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