Scan 97
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 55. See the scan on archive.org.
1able. Some of his backs have a wave-like form of great beauty, others have markings of great regularity, giving to the instrument a highly finished appearance. The bellies are of a soft, silken nature, and usually of even grain. A few of them are of singular beauty, their grain being of a mottled character, which within its rich transparent coat of varnish flashes light here and there with strange force.
3These, then, are the instruments which are so highly esteemed, and which form one of the chief links in the Violin family. The highest praise must be conceded to the originator of a design which combines extreme elegance with utility, and simple as the result may appear, the successful construction of so graceful a whole must have been attended with rare ingenuity and most persevering labour.
5Here, again, is evidence of the master mind, never resting, ever at work; evidence, too, that mere elaboration of work was not the ne plus ultra of the Cremonese makers. They designed and created as they worked, and their success, which no succeeding age has aspired to rival, entitles them to rank with the chief artists of the world.
7On the form of the instrument known as the "grand Amati," Antonius Stradiuarius exerted all the power of early years, and the fruits of his labours are in point of finish unsurpassed by even his later works. Where Nicholas Amati failed, Stradiuarius conquered; and particularly is this
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