Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › Violin tone and violin makers, 1916 › scan 220

Scan 220

Violin tone and violin makers, 1916

4 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 198. See the scan on archive.org.

1VIOLIN TONE
3individual members of the family, MATTHIAS I. (1656–1743) made fiddles of Stainer character and occasionally covered with varnish which gives some colour to the story that he travelled in Italy and acquired experience of Italian methods of varnishing. EGIDIUS KLOZ I. worked until 1711, and his instruments are good and fairly valuable. EGIDIUS II. died in 1805, and was a neat workman, but rarely used decent varnish. His violins are fairly common in this country. JOHANN CARL was one of the best of the tribe; model fairly flat; good red-brown varnish, and some general resemblance to Italian style in the work. He died in 1790. There were two makers named GEORGE, the second of whom died in 1797, and produced some highly finished work with brilliant varnish, but of Stainer model. Of the three JOSEPHS, the latest, who was alive in 1798, seems to have adopted a type of fiddle which has since been extensively imitated and has an outline of more Amati appearance than that of his predecessors. SEBASTIAN I. was a son of the first Matthias, and is usually reckoned the best maker of the family; he worked until about 1750, and produced good-sized fiddles, the best of which have handsome wood and flatter arching than those of his father; but Stainer traditions were evidently deeply implanted in him, and he never entirely discarded them. Several of the family adopted lion-heads with more or less frequency. Those of the first George are very well carved. KLOZ scrolls are not artistic, though they are distinctive enough. Genuine KLOZ fiddles of one grade or another are plentiful enough, but the celebrity at one time attaching to the name has led to numberless forgeries, many of which figure in pawnshops, and bear little or no resemblance to the originals.

The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.