Scan 54
The Violin Gallery: Comprising: Section I. South Kensington Special …, 1890
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1one in before it closes. There is also wanting an Amati bass, and, if the purchaser of Mr. Gillott's should feel disposed to supply that gap, it would be a very kind act. The Rugger family is numerous; it is represented by one violin (147.)
3Leaving the makers of the Guarnerius family—five in number—till the last, we come to Antonius Stradiuarius. This unrivalled workman and extraordinary man was born in 1644, and died in December, 1737. There is nothing signed with his name before 1667. He was learning his business thoroughly. From that date till 1736 he worked incessantly, often varying his style, and always improving, till he came to his climax, represented in this collection by the violins 83 and 87, and the violoncello 188.
5He began with rather a small, short-cornered violin, which is an imitation of the small Amati, but very superior. He went on, and imitated the large Amati, but softened down the corners. For thirty years—from 1672 to 1703—he poured forth violins of this pattern; there are several in this collection, and one tenor, 139, with a plain back but a beautiful belly, and in admirable preservation. But, while he was making these Amatise violins by the hundred, he had nevertheless his fits of originality, and put forth an anomaly every now and then; sometimes it was a very long, narrow violin with elegant drooping corners, and sometimes, in a happier mood, he combined these drooping corners with a far more beautiful model. Of these varieties No. 86 gives just an indication; no more. These lucid intervals never lasted long, he was back to his Amati next week. Yet they left, I think, the germs that broke out so marvelously in the next century. About the year 1703 it seems to have struck him like a revelation that was a greater man than his master. He dropped him once and for ever, and for nearly twenty years poured forth with unceasing fertility some admirable works, of which you have three fine examples, under average wear, hard wear, and no wear—90, 92, 91. Please look at the three violins in this order to realize what I have indicated before—that time is no sure measure of events in this business. Nevertheless, in all these exquisite productions there was one thing which he thought capable of improvement—there was a slight residue of the scoop, especially at the lower part of the back. He began to alter that about 1720, and by degrees went to his grand model, in which there is no scoop at all. This, his grandest epoch, is represented by the Duke of Cambridge's violin, Mr. Arkwright's, and M. le Comte's; this last has the additional characteristic of the stiffer sound-hole and the wood left broad in the wing of the sound-hole. One feature more of this his greatest epoch: the purfling instead of exactly following the corner, is pointed across it in a manner completely original. He made these grand violins and a bass or two till about 1729; after that the grand model is confined to his violins, and the details become inferior in finish. Of this there is an example in No. 84, a noble but rough violin, in parts of which certain connoisseurs would see, or fancy they saw, the hand of Bergonzi, or of Francesco or Homobuono Stradiuarius. These workmen undoubtedly lived, and survived their father a few years. They seem to have worked up his refuse wood after his death; but their interference with his work while alive has been exaggerated by French connoisseurs. To put a difficult question briefly: their theory fails to observe the style Stradiuarius was coming to even in 1727; it also ignores the age of Stradiuarius during this his last epoch of work, and says that there exists no old man's work by Stradiuarius
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.