Scan 256
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1passed 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 unique. 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 Stradivari jealously guarded the material he possessed having both handsome figure and valuable acoustical properties. Mr. Charles Reade says of these "Strads": "When a red Stradivari Violin is made of soft, velvety wood, and the varnish is just half worn off the back in a rough triangular form, that produces a certain beauty of light and shade which is, in my opinion, the ne plus ultra. These Violins are rare; I never had but two in my life."
3It is conceivable that a manufacture so successful as Violin-making proves itself to have been in Italy during the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth centuries, should give rise to scientific enquiry, in order to discover the reason of the excellence of the best Italian instruments, and, if possible, the principles or laws which guided the makers in the exercise of their genius. That investigations of this character should
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