Scan 375
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
4 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 307. See the scan on archive.org.
1of the great Italian masters for models, his work acquired a distinctive stamp of its own, and in its turn gave rise to a new and independent class of makers.
3FENDT, Bernard Simon, London, born in 1800, died in 1852. Son of the above. He was an excellent workman. It is to be regretted that he did not follow the excellent example set by his father, and let time do its work, without interruption, upon his instruments. Had he done so they would, in many instances, have been equal to those of his parent; but, unfortunately, he worked when the mania for obtaining supposed maturity by artificial means was at its height, and shared the general infatuation, and, in consequence, very frequently destroyed all the stamina of his instruments. Subsequently he became a partner of George Purdy, and carried on a joint business at Finch Lane, in the City of London, from whence most of his best instruments date. Purdy and Fendt had also a shop in the West End about 1843. He was a most assiduous worker. The number of Violins, Tenors, Violoncellos, and Double-Basses that he made was very great; indeed, his reputation would have been greater had he been content to have made fewer instruments and to have exercised more general care. His copies of Guarneri are most numerous, numbering some hundreds. They are mostly varnished with a glaring red colour, of a hard
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.