Scan 192
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
2 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1year or so later we find him again making use of wood from the same cuttings, which proves satisfactorily that he did not work up one piece before commencing with another. He would seem to have kept back the handsomest wood for certain important commissions. I have seen three Stradiuarius Violins of 1714 with backs having but little figure, yet this was the year in which he made the "Dolphin," which has long been regarded by the chief connoisseurs in Europe as the chef d'œuvre of Stradiuarius. From the days when it was in the possession of the Marquis de la Rosa to the present time its beauty has excited the admiration of the fiddle world. The splendour of the wood is unsurpassed in any Violin, ancient or modern, and it was named the "Dolphin" from the richness and variety of the tints it gives to the varnish. The model is perfection; its solidity of construction and glorious varnish all tend to make it matchless. Its beauty is of a kind that does not require the eye of the skilled connoisseur to recognise it; it causes those to exclaim whose knowledge is limited to being aware that it is a fiddle. His making this superb work of art in the same year in which he made instruments having wood quite opposite in figure, bears out, I consider, what I have before stated, viz., that Stradiuarius jealously guarded the material he possessed having both handsome figure and valuable acoustical properties. Mr. Charles Reade says of these "Strads:" "When a red Stradiuarius Violin is made of soft,
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