Scan 246
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1and extra arching, &c. Yet it must be readily admitted that the example which Stainer put before his countrymen was of great value, and served to engender an improved style throughout the Violin manufacture of Germany. The exceptional merits of this famous German artist were soon recognized, and his followers were legion. Among them were Sebastian Kloz, George Kloz, Egidius Kloz, and other members of that, perhaps the largest, family of Fiddle makers the world has had (had they been as good as they were numerous, what stores of prized Violins would have been bequeathed to us!); Reiss, of Bamberg; Rauch, of Breslau; and Leopold Widhalm, of Nuremberg, who was one of Stainer's best imitators; and others less known.
3There were several German makers—led, possibly, by the example of Stainer and Albani the younger—who turned their attention to Italy, as furnishing models superior to their own, and thus combined the styles of both countries; while they endeavoured to copy closely the Italian masters, without attempting to be original. Niccolò Amati was the maker whom these men chiefly copied, and most successfully did they perform their task. These copies, however, did not meet the success to which they were entitled, and the popularity of Stainer's mode was then so great that the instruments made upon other systems than his found no favour in the Fatherland. The makers who were copyists of the Italian masters were Ruppert, Bachmann Jauch, and Eberle of Prague.
5When we consider the long list of makers forming the German school, we cannot fail to feel surprised that the number of really good artists was not much larger; and our surprise increases when the close proximity of the Tyrolese workers to the chief Italian centres of the manu-
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