Books › The Salabue Stradivari. A history and critical description of the famous violin, commonly called "le Messie." Containing many particulars obtained from authentic sources and now published for the first time, 1891 › scan 32
Scan 32
The Salabue Stradivari. A history and critical description of the famous violin, commonly called "le Messie." Containing many particulars obtained from authentic sources and now published for the first time, 1891
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1Orchar, Esq., and the well-known violoncello for many years the property of Bonamy Dobree, Esq., and now in the possession of E. I. Holden, Esq.
3For an appreciative description of the beauties of the Salabue we may quote an enthusiast, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, whose writings and lectures upon his favourite study have made the name of Stradivari familiar to thousands of the English-speaking people. Mr. Haweis, referring to the exhibition of the instrument in London, in 1872, wrote—"It is for the first time unveiled in all its intact glory to the gaze of thousands to whom for years it has been a kind of myth. It is as though the ivory Minerva of Phidias, that stood once in the Parthenon, should be discovered hidden away with the utmost care in some deep dry and hermetically-sealed sepulchre of the East, and brought over scatheless to be set up amidst the Elgin fragments. So stands this matchless new violin amidst its time-worn, rubbed, and fractured brethren. It is of the grand pattern; it is massive without looking massive; its strength is hidden beneath its grace. The back is in two parts; the wood very choice. The fine graining of the flat belly is remarkable. The holes are delicately cut, the left f a shade lower than the right; a practice so common that it must have been intentional with Stradivarius, his fine eye not tolerating even there a suspicion of mechanical work. We see in this violin what the perfect Stradivari corners were. In almost every other known specimen the corners and the wood are both rubbed. In Le Messie they are untouched and clean-looking; wondrously sharp and
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