Scan 222
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1skill and judgment of the maker. The wood, with scarcely an exception, has not been prepared in order to darken it, rendering them instruments of increasing merit as age acts upon them.
3The practice of preparing the wood for Violin-making, either by baking it or by the application of acids, may be traced in the first instance to a desire to obtain artificially those results which are brought about by the hand of time. In obtaining lightness and dryness in new wood, it was imagined that the object in view would be reached without the aid of Dame Nature. Experience, however, has shown that Fiddles, like all things intended to pass into green old age, mature gradually, and are not to be benefited by any kind of forcing process. The earliest account I have met with of Fiddle-baking occurred in England about 150 years since. One Jeacocke, a baker by trade, and a lover of music by nature, used to bake his Fiddles in sawdust for a week whenever their tones showed symptoms of not being up to his standard of quality. In France the practice may be said to have been introduced about fifty years ago, with a view of facilitating the creation of such mysteries as Duiffoprugcar and Morella Violins, baked and browned until they had something of a fifteenth-century hue. The same means were adopted in the production of instruments intended as copies of the works of Stradivari and Guarneri. The brown hue of the originals, and the worn and broken condition of the varnish which comes of age alone, were imitated with more or less ingenuity. Happily the error is recognized as far as the best workmanship is concerned in France. The imitators' art no longer includes that of depicting wear and brownness, rendering abortive so much excellent work.
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