Books › Violin tone and violin makers, 1916 › scan 238
Scan 238
Violin tone and violin makers, 1916
2 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 216. See the scan on archive.org.
1towards the German form of outline; and in the treatment of the sound-holes the same thing may be observed. This is not surprising when it is remembered that the majority of the old Venetian makers exhibit traces, more or less marked, of the influence of Stainer. In his finest examples no trace of anything of the kind is discernible. He was an admirable workman with great knowledge of wood, and a fine eye for form. Much of his material is very handsome, particularly in the violoncellos, in the making of which instruments he was second to no maker, except Stradivari. A few double-basses are known. Violas are very rarely seen, but the few recognised as genuine are admirable instruments and possess a very fine tone. His varnish has long excited the admiration of connoisseurs. It is very lustrous, and of varying shades of red, the texture being much clearer than that usually seen on work of the Venetian school. The violins are of two sizes, the larger and more valuable being a small fraction under 14 inches long, and the general dimensions corresponding pretty nearly with the larger examples of Guarneri del Gesù. In the finer examples the sound-holes are not unlike some of those of Carlo Bergonzi. The arching is of medium height as a rule, but now and then a little fuller. His fiddles are certainly very rare, but their number is not so phenomenally limited as has been asserted by some writers. Tricks have been freely played with his labels in the past. These in some examples date from the sign "Cremona"; but there are genuine tickets which contain no reference to it. The heads are always splendid pieces of carving and of bold contour. One of the handsomest of his violoncellos has long been in the possession of Mr. George Gudgeon. A woodcut of it appears in Hart's book on the violin.
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