Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 243
Scan 243
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
18 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3PLATE X
5This plate of backs, bellies, and bows, has been fully explained in the text.
7PLATE XI
9Portraits of Paganini abound. Landseer sketched a series, which, however, are slightly of the nature of caricatures. It was difficult to do otherwise. The Maestro's features were so marked, his long hair so weird, the tall forehead, the wide sensitive mouth, the dark eyes, the ungainly and gaunt, almost dislocated attitudes of the man lent themselves freely to a lively and not always sympathetic or respectful pencil. The portrait, a rare one, here produced, hits the happy mean. The finest representation of him is, however, Danton's small bust (admirably reproduced by Mrs Haweis' pencil in "My Musical Life," where see my biographical study of Paganini).
11PLATE XII
13For a fuller list of labels, the "Collector" had better consult Mr Vidal's most valuable book referred to in our Bibliography, from which our seven specimens are reproduced. I may observe that a forged fiddle may often have what purports to be a genuine label. A reference, therefore, to these facsimiles may be useful.
15Buyers should also beware of labels bearing dates posterior to the death of the alleged makers. I have seen Stainer's so decorated. Stainer labels in two different sorts of type, i.e., the name in a running type and the rest in print, are never genuine. Duke copies of Stainer, often very good ones, sometimes present this peculiarity. Notice that Gasparo and Gio Paolo Maggini never dated their instruments. There exist numerous dated copies of Maggini—generally recent copies—De Beriot having brought the great Gio into notice. These are all frauds.
17Stradiuarius changed his labels late in life, using a v instead of u, and spelling Stradivari or Stradivarius. This is called the cursive v. Some Stradivarius-labelled violins have all the figures of the date printed, e.g., 1712. These are forgeries. The last two figures in the real labels being always filled up in ink, which has much faded. It does not, however, follow that all thus filled in are genuine—indeed, most are frauds. A particularly favourite date for forged Stradivari labels is 1721.
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