Scan 68
The Violin Gallery: Comprising: Section I. South Kensington Special …, 1890
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Mr. Pawle's bass.—He began with three or four coats of oil varnish containing some common gum. He then laid on several coats of red varnish, made by simply dissolving some fine red unadulterated gum in spirit; the spirit evaporated and left pure gum lying on a rich oil varnish, from which it chips by its dry nature and its utter want of chemical affinity to the substratum. On the Spanish bass Stradiuarius put not more, I think, than two coats of oil varnish, and then a spirit varnish consisting of a different gum, less chippy, but even more tender and wearable than the red. Now take this key all round the room, and you will find there is not a lock it will not open. Look at the varnish on the back of the "violon du diable," as it is called. There is a top varnish with all the fire of a topaz and far more colour; for slice the deepest topaz to that thinness, it would pale before that varnish. And why? 1st. Because this is no oily dilution; it is a divine unadulterated gum, left there undiluted by evaporation of the spirituous vehicle. 2nd. Because this varnish is a jewel with the advantage of a foil behind it; that foil is the fine oil varnish underneath. The purest specimen of Stradiuarius's red varnish in the room is, perhaps, Mr. Fountaine's kit. Look at the back of it by the light of these remarks. What can be plainer than the clear oil varnish with not the ghost of a chip in it, and the glossy top varnish, so charged with colour; and so ready to chip from the varnish below, for want of chemical affinity between the varnishes? The basso di camera by Montagnana is the same thing. See the bold wear on the back revealing the heterogeneous varnish below the red. They are all the same thing. The palest violins of Stradiuarius and Amati are much older and harder worn than Mr. Pawle's bass, and the top varnish not of a chippy character: yet look at them closely by the light of these remarks, and you shall find one of two phenomena—either the tender top varnish has all been worn away, and so there is nothing to be inferred one way or the other, or else there are flakes of it left; and, if so, these flakes, however thin, shall always betray, by the superior vividness of their colour to the colour of the adjacent oil varnish, that they are not oil varnish, but pure gum left there by evaporating spirit on a foil of beautiful old oil varnish. Take Mrs. Jay's Amatise Stradiuarius, on the back of that violin towards the top there is a mere flake of top varnish left by itself; all round it is nothing left but the bottom varnish. That fragment of top varnish is a film thinner than gold leaf; yet look at its intensity; it lies on the fine old oil varnish like fixed lightning, it is so vivid. It is just as distinct from the oil varnish as is the red varnish of the kit. Examine the Duke of Cambridge's violin, or any other Cremona instrument in the whole world you like; it is always the same thing, though not so self-evident as in the red and chippy varnishes. The Vuillaume Stradiuarius, not being worn, does not assist us in this particular line of argument, but it does not contradict us. Indeed, there are a few little chips in the top varnish of the back, and they reveal a heterogeneous varnish below, with its rich yellow colour like the bottom varnish of the Pawle bass. Moreover, if you look at the top varnish closely you shall see what you never see in a new violin of our day; not a vulgar glare upon the
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