Scan 309
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
6 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 249. See the scan on archive.org.
1a crescent off the top, and another off the bottom, and the result is a thing with the inner bout of a giant and the upper and lower bout of a dwarf." He rightly names this, "cutting in the statutory sense, viz., cutting and maiming," and implores the owner of an instrument in its original state to spare it, and if too large, to play on one of the value of £5, with the Cremona set before him to look at while he plays. To "cut" a Cremona, and to cut a diamond into a brilliant or a rose, are tasks equally difficult. The indifferent operator, in both cases, suffers more or less from the injury and annoyance his unskilfulness has occasioned. Borgis, a Venetian diamond-cutter, was employed by Shah Jehan to cut the Koh-i-nor, and in place of a reward was fined ten thousand ducats for his imperfect performance. Had it happened that some possessors of Cremonese gems had inflicted monetary or other punishment on incapable instrument cutters, the world would have been richer in Cremonas. Mennégand was at Amsterdam for a few years, and returned to Paris in 1857. He died in 1885.
3MIREMONT, Claude Augustin, Paris. Born at Mirecourt in 1827, removed to Paris in 1844. Miremont has made several excellent Violins, copies of Stradivari and Guarneri. He was for some years in New York, but returned to Paris and died at Pontorson in 1887.
5MODESSIER, —, Paris, 1810. Made several
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