Books › The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. : With several wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1880 › scan 51
Scan 51
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. : With several wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1880
9 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 35. See the scan on archive.org.
1SECTION V.
2The Italian Varnish.
4A WORD or two must be said upon the famous varnish of the Italians, which has hitherto baffled all attempts to solve the mystery of its formation. Every instrument belonging to the school of Cremona has it, more or less, in all its marvellous beauty, and to these instruments the resolute investigator turns and turns, promising himself the discovery of its constituent parts. The more its lustre penetrates his soul the more determined becomes his efforts. As yet, however, all such praiseworthy researches have been futile, and the composition of the Cremonese varnish remains a secret lost to the world—as much so as the glorious ruby lustre of Giorgio and the blue so coveted by connoisseurs of china. Mr. Charles Reade truly says, "No wonder, then, that many Violin makers have tried hard to discover the secret of this varnish: many chemists have given anxious days and nights to it. More than once, even in my time, hopes have run high, but only to fall again. Some have even cried 'Eureka' to the public; but the moment others looked at their discovery and compared it with the real thing,
6'Inextinguishable laughter shook the skies.'
8At last despair has succeeded to all that energetic study, and the varnish of Cremona is sullenly given up as a lost art."
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.