Scan 59
The Violin Gallery: Comprising: Section I. South Kensington Special …, 1890
13 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1goes to the drawing-room. The piano is opened; a servant brings the Stradiuarius bass from the study; the old gentleman takes it and tunes it, and, not to be bothered with his lapels, buttons his coat, and plays his part in a quartett of Haydn or a symphony of Corelli, and smiles as he plays, because he really loves music, and is not overweighted. Your modern amateur, with a face of justifiable agony, ploughs the hill of Beethoven and harrows the soul of Reade. Nevertheless, my smiling senior is all the time bringing the finest and most delicate varnish of Stradiuarius into a series of gentle collisions with the following objects:—First, the gold pin; then the two rows of brass buttons; and last, not least, the male chatelaine of the period. There is an oval chip just off the centre of this bass; I give the armorial seal 'especial credit for that: "a tout Seigneur tout honneur."
3Take another specimen of eccentric wear: the red Stradiuarius kit 88. The enormous oval wear has been done thus:—It has belonged to a dancing-master, and he has clapped it under his arm fifty times a day to show his pupils the steps.
5The Guarnerius family consisted of Andreas, his two sons Petrus and Joseph, his grandson Petrus Guarnerius of Venice, and Joseph Guarnerius, the greatest of the family, whom Mons. Fetis considers identical with Guiseppe Antonio, born in 1683. There are, however, great difficulties in the way of this theory, which I will reserve for my miscellaneous remarks.
7Andreas Guarnerius was the closest of all the copyists of the Amati; so close, indeed, that his genuine violins are nearly always sold as Amati. Unfortunately he imitated the small pattern. His wood and varnish are exactly like Amati; there is, however, a peculiar way of cutting the lower wing of his sound-holes that betrays him at once. When you find him with the border high and broad, and the purfling grand, you may suspect his son Petrus of helping him, for his own style is petty. His bases few, but fine. Petrus Guarnerius of Cremona makes violins prodigiously bombes, and more adapted to grumbling inside than singing out; but their appearance magnificent: a grand deep border, very noble, sound-hole and scroll Amatise, and a deep orange varnish that nothing can surpass. His violins are singularly scarce in England. I hope to see one at the Exhibition before it closes.
9Joseph, his brother, is a thorough original. His violins are narrowed under the shoulder in a way all his own. As to model, his fiddles are bombes like his brother's; and, as the centre has generally sunk from weakness, the violin presents a great bump at the upper part and another at the lower. The violin 97 is by this maker, and is in pure and perfect condition; but the wood having no figure, the beauty of the varnish is not appreciated. He is the king of the varnishers. He was the first man at Cremona that used red varnish oftener than pale, and in that respect was the teacher even of Stradiuarius. When this maker deviates from his custom and puts really good hare-wood into a violin, then his glorious varnish gets fair play, and nothing can live beside him. The other day a violin of this make with fine wood, but undersized, was put up at an auction without a name. I suppose nobody knew the maker, for it was sold on its merits, and fetched £160. I brought that violin into the country; gave a dealer £24 for it in Paris.
11He made a very few flatter violins, that are worth any money.
12Petrus Guarnerius, the son of this Joseph, learned his business in Cremona,
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