Scan 205
Voice and violin: sketches, anecdotes, and reminiscences by T.L. Phipson, 1898
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 187. See the scan on archive.org.
1strong in comportment, especially favoured by the fair sex, and an exceedingly talented workman.
3Books treating of the old master luthists record a good deal of detail (mostly imaginary) on the obscure life of Jacob Stainer, his love affairs, his miseries, and his celebrity as a violin-maker. But very few have given us much information on the structure or model of his instruments, which differ considerably from those of all other makers.
5At the present day the most ordinary violins are occasionally to be found in bric-à-brac shops and pawnbroker's establishments, bearing a printed label representing these instruments to be the work of Jacobus Stainer, of Absom. Not long ago I saw a "Stainer" of this kind sold for £20. It was a very fair instrument, and worth the money given for it; but a genuine Stainer would probably be worth £200 to £300 as prices go.
7The best authorities agree in stating that no genuine Stainer violin ever had a printed label. The real Stainer labels are all hand-written, and in that coarse, uncouth, barely legible scrawl which also characterises the written labels of Stradivari and many other workmen, whose hands were more accustomed to the manipulation of the chisel, the file, and the glue-pot, than to that of the pen.
9Nevertheless, Stainer's handwriting was somewhat better than that of Stradivari, and the latter often used printed labels. Many facsimiles of the
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