Chapter XV: Violin Dealers, Collectors, and Amateurs (1)

I Have come to the conclusion, “after long years,” that there are three things about which your averagely honest man has no conscience whatever--the first is a horse, the second is an umbrella, and the last, but not least, is a fiddle.

He will buy from some needy ignoramus a fiddle worth £100 for a £5 note, if he can. He will sell a fiddle which cost him £5 for £100, if he can. Truly, the _caveat emptor_ of the ancient Romans covers a multitude of sins.

On the other hand, the extreme ignorance of many persons who have violins to sell offers singular temptations to dealers, who are a class of people constitutionally on the make.

In bygone days, people who did not play the violin used to be criminally careless about the instruments that happened to be in their possession. Cremonas might lie for years in damp attics, or hung up in disused cupboards on rusty nails, or away in the dust of ages on the top of old beds and cabinets. Even if the fiddle was ultimately stolen--borrowed and not returned--it was thought hardly worth a serious inquiry; it “was all to pieces” or “only an old fiddle”; and, indeed, I have before now seen such with the belly off converted into serviceable dustpans.

Credulity has succeeded to ignorance, and now any one who has any sort of shabby-looking fiddle fancies he has got a rare Cremona!

He will advertise it unblushingly in the halfpenny papers, bring it gravely to supposed judges, and make a favour of even showing it to a dealer.

Nothing will shake the confidence of these simple folk in their spurious wares; they will bring out a common brown German _dated_ Maggini, and you point out that Maggini never dated his instruments; they suppose you to be envious. Or they show you a Stainer rashly dated fifty years after that maker’s death (such an one was lately brought to me), with a label so recent that you wonder at the brazen fraud. As to the good and tolerably deceptive French copies of Strad, their name is legion, and for a moment a person fairly conversant with fiddles may be deceived by such a subtle and withal honest copyist as Lupôt, but to the eye of the experienced dealer the varnish is quite enough. The varnish that chips off instead of rubbing away, thus leaving the raw wood more exposed than permeated, is not Cremona varnish.

Of course as to the new labels in modern type I have nothing to say. No one but a complete fool in fiddles could be taken in by them.

Still, when all gross cases are put aside, there is an excusable margin left for honest error, especially when personal interest is on the side of error.

I have very little doubt that my old friend, the late Mr Cox, well known as an acute picture dealer, really believed in a certain violin which he called the Red Knight. He bought it at the great sale of Gillott’s fiddles as a rare Joseph Guarnerius.

I would never tell the old man to his face that his Joseph was a very plausible red Landolpho copy of Joseph, and I was even weak enough to allow it to lie on the table of the Royal Institution side by side with the “Dolphin,” Enthoven’s Maggini, the Emperor of Russia’s Strad, a genuine Nicolas, a Joseph and a Jacob Stainer; in short, the Red Knight lay by favour for one evening in company with some twenty gems of worldwide reputation.

In the course of my lecture, to please my old friend, I took up the Red Knight, remarking, “Here is a fine violin _labelled_ Joseph Guarnerius, once the property of Mr Gillott, now owned by Mr Cox.” I said no more.

A few weeks afterwards the Red Knight was sold for £300, partly on the strength of my having vouched for it at the Royal Institution.

Meanwhile the Jupiter of judges, William Ebsworth Hill, had been consulted by the purchaser, who, on finding that he had only got hold of a Landolpho, wanted his money back.

I think they would have gone to law if they could have counted on me as a witness; but when I was threatened with a subpœna, I replied, “I would certainly go into the box, but should have utterly to deny that I had vouched for the genuineness of the Red Knight or expressed any opinion whatever about it except that it was ‘a good fiddle _labelled_ Guarnerius,’ worth perhaps £60 but not £300.”

The upshot was that I was not subpœnaed. Mr Cox refunded the money and the buyer restored the fiddle.

No one doubts but what Mr Gillott, of steel-pen celebrity, did obtain, chiefly through Charles Reade of “Never Too Late to Mend” fame, a great many very fine fiddles, but I am afraid that Mr C. Reade was also responsible for some comparative rubbish like the Red Knight. Certainly I find a very dubious Strad tenor (one of Gillott’s) labelled 140 in the South Kensington collection. As to this particular collector’s specimen, if I grant him his belly and his sound-holes, it is about all that I can do--for Strad never threw that scroll nor touched with plane or chisel that back and ribs.

I brought home from Australia a so-called Peter Guarnerius--really an excellent violin--but it was no more a Guarnerius than a Strad, and was sold far under its value as a Camillo Camilli, which it probably was. But what will you? After all, a fiddle at any given time is worth what it will fetch.

The most impudent fraud or the most blatant delusion which has ever come under my notice was the so-called Maggini exhibited by Mr J. W. Joyce (110, South Kensington Exhibition, 1872).

It was made by Bernhardt Fendt, and I gave in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of the period its history and the names of its chief owners; but it was not removed, neither was the Amati tenor (No. 147), labelled and hung as Maggini, ever re-labelled, nor was a Klotz fiddle which bore a Stainer label ever corrected.

The only fraud I succeeded in dislodging was a spurious Bergonzi--also sent up by Mr J. W. Joyce--which after my attack on the South Kensington collection of 1872 disappeared.

The poor thing, no worse than the Bernhardt Fendt which brazened it out like a false claimant, was merely made a scapegoat of.

These be among the humours of your loan collections!

But we must be indulgent. Some mistakes are sure to be made, but it is only fair to remember that the fiddle world is vastly indebted to these grand fiddle exhibitions all the same. The exhibition of 1885 at South Kensington was not one whit less important than the 1872 show.

The 1885 specimens were more discreetly selected than those of 1872. They had the advantage of being largely controlled by Mr Hill.

Besides the usual supply of leading Italian makers, the English school was remarkably well represented. There was found a capital Ford, a maker who has not received due credit for his excellent work. A good Duke and Walmsley, and a yellow fiddle by Tobin, a man quite noticeable for the cut of his scrolls, which are always full of character.

There was an interesting John Lott, richly varnished. A romantic interest must always attach itself to this fine maker on account of his early Bohemian life, recorded by Charles Reade in a memoir called “Jack of All Trades.”

Charles Reade, who knew Lott intimately, tells us how at one time he travelled through Europe with a menagerie and became famous as the keeper of a most clever but vicious elephant called Djek, who, after killing ever so many men, had to be demolished herself with a cannon, and was then cut up for elephant steaks to feed the town.

It was only after the loss of Djek that John Lott came again to London and took up the fiddle trade, which he had learned in boyhood.

Joseph Hill, Lockey Hill, and Banks, were also well seen at South Kensington in 1885. There was also a matchless Urquhart, very venerable--Anno 1666--the date of the great fire of London, which happily spared it!

The Stradivarius case contained Mr Hill’s interesting 1732 Strad (now Ysaÿe’s violin), which, although made so late in his life, was signed by the old man, who after 1730, as a rule, had left off signing his instruments.

A truly serio-comic chapter might be written on the huge prices given for frauds. A friend of mine gave £200 forty years ago for a supposed Strad (which was only a Lupôt) at a time when £40 was a long price for the clever Frenchman.

A violin professor I know sold a very poor Strad the other day, but made a very good thing out of it. When the lady showed it me, I took a liberal view, and said that £300 would have been a long price. Her countenance fell.

“Good gracious! I gave £600!”

“Keep it long enough, and _anything_ by Strad will fetch that; but probably not,” I added, “in your lifetime or mine.” This was some years ago.

On the other hand, bargains in Strads and Josephs, Bergonzis and Stainers, are still no doubt to be got, but only about as often as bargains in Raphaels, Rubens, Rembrandts, or Tintorets; but amateurs of pictures and fiddles are mostly wrecked on school-pictures and school-fiddles, often getting fair money’s worth, but _not_ what they _pay for_.

Betts purchased one of the finest Stradivari in the world for 20s. When John Lott opened it in Vuillaume’s presence, he found the original bass-bar. The bar--so Charles Reade tells us--was low and short, and quite incapable of bearing the strain of concert pitch, and John Lott replaced it with one stronger. The Betts Strad was sold to George Hart for 800 guineas--a heavy price fifty years ago.

Mr John Hart, father of George Hart, picked up a violoncello in Oxford Street for a sovereign or two. The timbre caught his ear as he passed three street-musicians--violin, cornet, and ’cello.

Lindley, the great player, came into his shop and bought a fine Forster ’cello for a round sum. This was the Oxford Street ’cello.

The destiny of violins has ever been one full of ups and downs, and, like human beings, they have been literally kidnapped, as in the case of Spohr’s, which was lifted from behind his travelling carriage; shipwrecked, like the Peter and Paul, _vide_ page 96; murdered by those Vandals who patch stray bits of slaughtered Cremonas into modern fabrics, and sold for slaves, as in last century, to be scraped in dim churches or ancient orchestras, until found out to be royalties in disguise by the Chanôts and Vuillaumes of the nineteenth century.

One would suppose that the stealing of a first-class instrument would be next to impossible. Hardly a fiddle of mark now exists which is not known to one or other of the great dealers in Paris, London, or Berlin; and whenever it changes hands, it is likely to come before them again for inspection and verification. Yet some of the famous Spanish Court Strads have vanished no one knows where, and another famous Strad from the Plowden Collection, whilst in possession of one of our diplomats at St Petersburg, disappeared, and has never since been traced.

Many years ago I left a Vuillaume, labelled Albani, in a railway carriage when I got out to take refreshment. I was not gone five minutes, but in that five minutes my Vuillaume had gone.

After the death of a well-known nobleman, a certain so-called Strad in an elaborate case, with finely-mounted bows, was submitted to Mr Hill for inspection. It was nothing but a common German fiddle; but Mr Hill told me he had no doubt that the original occupant of the noble case had been stolen. Probably many such thefts have been committed by dishonest servants. Nothing could be easier than to substitute one fiddle for another in houses--and they are legion--where people do not know one fiddle from another, and where fiddles lie unused and unvisited in lofts and cupboards, I might almost say from generation to generation. No soloist who travels should fail to insure his treasure. Sarasate had a heavy insurance on his violin when he went to America.

But worse than theft is mutilation. The chances are that what is stolen, unless it be stolen deliberately to cut up, will some day reappear intact; but the chances are small that a mutilated instrument will ever collect its _disjecta membra_.

Still, as in the case of Tarisio’s Spanish bass, that too is possible, just as the recovery of the Hercules Farnese statue, before alluded to, was possible.

A well-known amateur whose Strad had been taken to pieces for repair and the pieces wrapped in bits of paper, on unfolding the fragments found the head missing. The loss seemed irreparable, but a day or two afterwards an old apple-woman picked it up in the gutter, and happened to take it to the very fiddle-shop charged with the repair of the Strad. That Strad head was worth just 2s.--to the old woman!

Nothing is easier than the perpetration of a fraud by a clever copyist if he chooses to attempt it. Incredible as it may appear, Paganini was shown by Vuillaume two fiddles, one of which was his own and the other a counterfeit, and was quite unable at the moment to decide which was which.

Chanôt’s copy of the Carlino or Kerlino 1454 viol, No. 14, South Kensington 1872 Exhibition, completely deceived me until I had the opportunity of handling both instruments at leisure.

These frauds extend to bows. The Tourte and Dodd bows in existence that know not Dodd or Tourte are legion.

I should recommend my readers never to leave a valuable bow in their case when they send their violins for repair.

I lost a good Dodd myself in that way. Fine bows are not safe even in the orchestra anteroom; they get “changed.” It seems so simple to some people, when a bow, a crush-hat, or an umbrella happens to be lying about, to mistake it for their own and leave theirs behind, especially if it is inferior in quality to the one they chance to catch up by mistake! As luck will have it, ’tis seldom a worse one that gets caught up!

A friend of mine happened to leave a fine Tourte bow in his case, and then he sent his fiddle for repairs to a smart dealer who shall be nameless here. When the case returned, it had a bow in it, but it was a copy, and a very good copy, of a Tourte. In this instance the dealer restored the original under pressure.

In everything connected with a fiddle and a bow I say, Beware! Beware! Further, let me say to amateurs, not one in a thousand of you, even with practice and opportunity, is fit to judge of a violin; you may easily know what _suits_ you, and that no doubt for practical purposes is the essential. You can hardly know what is _genuine_.

Over and above culture and wide observation and experience, a certain instinct is required, and few are they that have it. Why, my friend, if William Ebsworth Hill, from whose judgment there was no appeal, got “his eye out” when only for a few weeks he left off looking at fiddles, or distrusted his own judgment on certain days, as to my knowledge was the case--for he was at once the most diffident and absolute of men--what chance have you? Why, none at all!

I will go further than this, and declare that half the violinists now before the public are no more judges of a _genuine_ fiddle than my cook. A man may be a judge without being able to play, and a man may play divinely and not be a judge. At the same time Charles Reade’s opinion would have been even more valuable than it was had he played himself. He never would have written those foolish paragraphs about modern-made fiddles sounding as well as old Cremonas had he played himself. It is all the difference between a man who looks at another man on horseback and one who has got to ride the horse himself; the first may not see much difference in two horses, but the second soon finds it out!

Playing the fiddle won’t make you a judge, but you will be a better judge if you can play the fiddle. I remember showing Remenyi a very fine copy of Strad which had deceived many. He walked up and down my room playing upon it with delight, and pronounced it a genuine Strad beyond a question. It was a Lupôt for all that.

As for your ordinary amateur, he will judge by an old-looking label, being unaware that forgers keep old battered counterfeit type in stock, or he will note the place of the little buttons which fasten the inner blocks, supposing that each maker had his favourite position for these buttons from which he never deviated. Others will prate about Strad’s wasp sting purfle running counter to the angle of his corners, or declare that one maker never made his back in two pieces, whilst another never made it otherwise.

But there is one mark occasionally found in old Italian violins which I do not remember to have seen forged or imitated, or indeed even so much as alluded to by any writer.

If the amateur happens to have an instrument with a little round hole in the back of his fiddle a few inches below the nut, filled up skilfully so as to be almost imperceptible, he may be quite sure he has got an old violin, probably one of the oldest, as the practice of falling suddenly on the knees and letting the violin hang, in processions in which the singers went before and the minstrels followed after, has long been abandoned.

That little hole, so cunningly plugged, shows the place where a slight chain connected the instrument to a button-screw or hook, so that at the elevation of the Host, the minstrel might suddenly fall on his knees without the fear of dropping his fiddle. I have an old Andrew Guarnerius so plugged, and the violinist Oury first pointed this out to me and explained the reason of the plugged hole!

Scores have sent me descriptions of their fiddles, and expected me to pronounce on the genuineness of them, or are sure that they own a real Strad or Amati, because theirs (in their opinion) exactly corresponds to my description of Strad or Amati in “Music and Morals.” All this shows that the outside public have not the faintest inkling of true violin lore.

Oliver Wendell Holmes felt this when he wrote to me in 1885.

He had himself written very charmingly on the violin, and the passage is quoted with approval even by so redoubtable a critic as Mr George Hart in his admirable book “The Violin” (1887).

Oliver Wendell Holmes had the acuteness to see that all _mere_ picturesque writing was valueless from a technical point of view, and he thus expresses himself to me in a letter dated December 5, 1885:--

“I never knew until I read what you say of the instrument what profanation I had been guilty of to touch one, much more to write about it!” and he was kind enough to add: “You have given a life to the fiddle such as nothing but its own music ever gave it before!”--words which, coming so spontaneously from the author of the “Autocrat of the Breakfast-table,” I think I may be allowed to quote with pardonable pleasure.

There is a point interesting alike to collectors, amateurs, dealers, and players, which I feel somewhat strongly about in view of much recent, and, as it seems to me, ignorantly conducted controversy.

It is whether, as far as tone and sensibility are concerned, the best modern fiddles are not quite as good as the best old ones. We hear repeatedly stories of Strads and Josephs being played side by side with modern fiddles, whilst the best judges have failed to detect the superiority of the old over the new. This test is most unsatisfactory. The ear is as easily confused as the palate. It is currently reported that if you taste alternately port wine, cream, and sherry, you will not, after a few sips with your eyes shut, be able to tell the difference; but no one argues from this that _there is no difference_. The ear is not only easily confused about the quality, but even about the direction of sound.

Let one man shut his eyes and another snap his fingers on the right, left, and above the other’s head several times running, and this one shall be utterly unable to tell after a few turns where the fingers are being snapped. No one is a real judge of the distance from which a sound comes. If, then, we can be easily puzzled when plied with such tests about the direction and the distance, no wonder if tests expressly designed to confuse us about timbre should be equally successful. But the question is practically settled by soloists invariably preferring a fine old fiddle to a fine new one, not as connoisseurs, but as _players_, and there must be a reason for this.

Therefore, I will hear of no talk, even from the lips of a Charles Reade, about the varnish, the finish, the artistic beauty in form or colour of the old violins being largely responsible for this avowed preference. It is tonal power--quality, sensibility, volume, timbre--a something _personal_, as it were, to the old fiddles, which points to certain real qualities in their makers which have not since been rivalled, and this is quite apart from the item of age.

Age will make a good fiddle better, but it won’t make a bad fiddle good; it may also be possible to prematurely age a new fiddle, not with heat or acids, but quite legitimately, by incessantly and for long periods of time grinding it through every semitone of its compass, and well-made modern fiddles will doubtless improve every year, like good wine, up to a certain point. They will then probably deteriorate. But the age at which the old Cremonas are bound to deteriorate has happily not yet been reached.

The root of the matter lies here.

A listener behind the door may not know the difference between a Strad or Joseph or some other, but the _player does_. A spectator in the Park may see no great difference between the pet horse ridden by the lady and the even more handsome quadruped upon which her groom follows; but _she_ knows. So the hunter knows his horse, and values him above another horse which looks better; the beast he rides will answer to his will, go anywhere with him, and rise to every occasion.

This is what your Strad fiddle does.

All violinists will tell you that there is a _reserve_ of force about a Strad; you can “pull out,” and you will never be disappointed.

All lovers of Amati will tell you that they find in Nicolo a trembling sighing sensitiveness, a tenderness, and a tone delicate to the point of vanishing, which endears Amati to the women, and still leaves his finest instruments unapproachable for cabinet-playing.

And all players will tell you that for domination and downright big-battalion power, Joseph Guarnerius del Gesù has not his equal.

And the reason for this real, not fancied, supremacy of the great makers and their best pupils?

The reason is complex, no doubt--so complex that, when all precautions have been taken to imitate wood, proportions, varnish, workmanship, so as thoroughly to deceive the eye, the modern _chef-d’œuvre_ is, in spite of puzzled auditors, still not identical in quality with the old Cremona gems.

I was called the other day to judge a set of English bells, cast with the same proportions of tin and copper, of exactly the same size, weight, and model as a suite of Belgian bells cast by Severin Van Aerschodt; but the sound?

Ye gods! No silver clang and tin-kettle parody could be further apart than were those English and Belgian bells.

But to return to our fiddles. The reasons of Cremona supremacy remain to be tackled.

I hazard the following points:--

_1st._ Selection of wood. No doubt the old Lombardian forests, with their salt-impregnated roots, provided rare planks. The vaunted American woods fail technically to satisfy the Cremona requirements.

_2nd._ The knowledge, at first empirical, then intuitive, born of a lifelong study of the relative density of woods fitted to vibrate together. Nothing can teach this, no rule or measurements; for every plank varies in porousness, density of fibre, age, and seasoning.

Charles Reade was napping when he expressed a hope that a certain Stradivari back, mated with a new belly, might some day be united to _some_ Stradivari back of which he knew; but unless it happened to be _the_ belly Strad had selected for that particular back, what reason is there to suppose that the result would be satisfactory?

_3rd._ I am of opinion that the old method of careful oil-sizing and the subsequent application of gum materially affected the tone.

Think for a moment only of what is implied in the saturation--too much or too little of the wood--with oils, spirit, gum of this or that quality.

Necessarily some vibratory capacities must be affected--for better, for worse--by the filling in, one way or another, of the wood pores; and do not the commonest of modern artificers admit that the Cremona varnish, and the exact mode of its application, is as yet undiscovered; and when they speak otherwise, do they not laugh in their sleeves?

_4th._ Admit that the _proportions_ are exactly equal, the column of air almost identical in cubic measure, about 512 to the second; still remains the vibratory qualities of infinite varieties of grain--coarse or close, loose or serried--in wood fibre acting upon that air column.

The old makers varied their models, but, no doubt, had regard to the thicknesses and the subtle relations between the hard and soft woods which would produce the power or quickness of reply, or sweetness, or penetratingness aimed at.

It _may_ be that the secret for the production of these is quite incommunicable, just as a painter, an actor, a singer, a sculptor will do a thing before you, which you cannot do, which he cannot teach you how to do, though he place his brush, his chisel, his music, his toga and footlights at your disposal.

_5th._ We have no time for failures; they had. Endless experiment, endless comparison, observation, meditation, unlimited leisure: one and the same man made each part, and knew the interpenetrative qualities and the mutual adaptation of the sundry parts.

We now have subdivision of labour; each man makes one of the parts, and some one else puts them together. How can such backs accord with such bellies? How can such ribs cotton with such strange and fortuitous planks? Truly a scratch company brought together like strangers, yet expected to accept their arbitrary assortment, and make sweet harmony together. But they were not fastened together, in view of one another, by one and the same master-mind, who knew what was good for them, and what they were good for!

_6th._ But given the possibility of favourable conditions--time, absorption, infinite experience, and all the accumulated knowledge of the past--and given a modern Nicolo, Strad, Joseph, or even Bergonzi, and given climate, and given wood galore, and might not we expect Cremona results?

Why, yes, with Cremona conditions, certainly, or at least a very fair approximation; and I am far from saying that we are not on the road to it.

Until lately it has not been worth while for makers like the Hills, the Gands, or the Chanôt firms to do aught seriously but repair or parody closely for the eye the old fiddles.

But such of Vuillaume’s fiddles as have not been aged with heat and acids, and the fine £10 to £30 violins now being made conscientiously by Messrs Hill, in proportion as old fiddles become rare and inaccessible, must come to the fore. Anyhow, players will, it is hoped, give up the idiotic folly of paying large sums for indifferent old fiddles, even with respectable names, when they can get really fine new ones for half the money with twice the tone--a good tone, too, which a very few years will suffice to mellow.

We write these words in the interest of dealers, collectors, players, and artificers alike--indeed, it would be well worth while for collectors even now to get hold of the finest attainable specimens of new work. As a mere speculation it would be at least as sound an investment as laying down good vintages of port or sherry.

A good Hill recently made, price £30 or £40, _e.g._ the fine copy of the Tuscan Strad, only requires age to mellow it into a price of three figures.

These new and garish-looking instruments, which, after all, do not look more gaudy than the Messie Strad, are exceedingly loud in tone, and withal very sensitive.

A certain tartness of timbre merely calls aloud for another ten or twenty years to soften and refine it into the Cremona tone.

Meanwhile, the aspirants to Cremona excellence are entertainingly numerous. From time to time I get letters accompanied with samples from people who claim to have discovered the secret of the Cremona varnish.

Here and there some enterprising maker will get a literary friend to extol him as the successor of Stradiuarius.

I came across a pamphlet the other day assigning Cremona rank to a worthy musician who makes fiddles _en amateur_, and a certain German working in America, whose violins present all the usual characteristics of instruments made in Germany. I actually got half through this remarkable document, written _au grand serieux_, before I discovered that it belonged to the liver pill, patent syrup, and soap class.

Rumours may reach you from America of the wonderful Californian wood. Well, European experts tell me that, fine as is the marking, it does not yield the required timbre, and that the planks now coming over from the old forests of Herzgovina and Bosnia are far superior for fiddle-making purposes.

Then think of the care and study in selection made by those old Italian artificers who frequented the Brescian and Cremonese markets, and haggled over special bits of timber. They knew exactly where it came from--the peculiarities of the soil, iron or salt impregnated from whence it came; whether it was cut as it should be, in autumn, with the sap out of it, and exactly how long it had been cut, and to what conditions it had been exposed before it came to be worked up. The subtleties were endless. Who troubles their heads about such things now?

No! The fact about modern fiddles you, my anxious inquirer, may take it for granted is what I have stated. Take good new fiddles by Hill, Chanôt, Bernardel, Gand, and, according to the time and individual or one-man power and skill spent upon them, they will rank high, and higher by-and-by; and if ever the genius and the conditions which obtained at Cremona, anno 1700, are again found, then, and not till then, will the peers and rivals of the Cremona masterpieces be seen and heard--and paid for.

It may be rash to attempt a scale of prices, when the experience of the last fifty years proves that we have to deal with a _sliding_ scale. Forty years ago my father bought a rather small Andrea Guarnerius at Puttick & Simpson’s for £4, which could not now be picked up under £20. No Cremona from 1660 to 1760 can be got for much less, though many better fiddles can be got for half that price. Of course the rise in the Strads is quite phenomenal. Stainer, on the other hand, is not valued as highly by comparison as he was last century; whilst, owing to the rarity of real Stainers, the demand for Klotz and Albani, more easily attainable, has somewhat increased, and generally all the second and third class makers are being hunted up and command good figures now, just as a man who can’t get Charles II. silver will put up with William and Mary, Queen Anne, and even the early Georges.

It is quite safe to buy Urquhart, Ford, Banks, Forster, Furber (Henry, David, or John), and Pamphilion; but the once popular “Duke” days are pretty well over.

Lupôt should be _always_ secured, and Vuillaumes that have not been cooked with acids and heat; and no collector will go far wrong with Pique.

Venetian fiddles, and especially violoncellos, near akin to Cremona, will be sure to rise; and, as a rule, the Northern fiddles will command a better figure than the Southerners--Rome and Naples.

But all such hints are general, and must be taken for what they are worth, for stray specimens will often turn up belonging to almost any school, which will have rare merits and can hardly be accounted for by any systematic classification.

The following up-to-date (1898) scale of prices may be a useful but rough guide to the collector with money that burns his pocket:--

PRICES

[1898]

Stradivari £2000 to £200
Joseph Guarnerius 1000 ” 100
Other Guarnerii 300 ” 30
Nicolo Amati, and the brothers
Anthony, and Gerome 500 ” 80 or £50
Stainer 200 ” 30
C. Bergonzi 600 ” 40
Maggini 500 ” 50
J. B. Vuillaume 60 ” 20
Lupôt 200 ” 50
Pique 60 ” 10
Forster (’cellos) 100 ” 20
Duke 40 ” 5
Banks 100 ” 20

There are two general rules, which, like all rules, may have some exceptions--not many:--

I. Never buy a fiddle simply at the owner’s valuation; judge it by your own knowledge if you have any, or that of an expert if you have none.

II. If you buy at auction, always go a few pounds better than the highest bid offered by a _dealer_, and if you win, you will be in luck.

III. Before sending a valuable violin to be “done up,” select your repairer carefully. A fiddle maker is not necessarily a fiddle restorer, and may be quite ignorant of the traditions which should regulate this branch of the luthier’s art.

IV. Get your violin’s pedigree _as far as you can_ in detail, with names and dates. Had this been always done, exhibitions would have been spared many a delusion and collectors many a fraud.

POSTLUDE

My task is ended.

The shades of the great melodious dead still seem to hover around me--as their echoes

“Roll from Pole to Pole,”

and from

“Soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.”

Violins may be made hereafter, copies may deceive the eye, sounds bewilder the ear, but there will never again be an Amati or a Stradivari, any more than a Phidias or a Raphael.

The age of discovery comes but once.

It is big with the future up to the moment when it resumes in itself the golden heritage of the past. We may imitate, but we cannot reproduce; nor will that thrill of perfection--that emotion of eternal novelty which we experience in contemplating and sounding the Cremona masterpieces--ever electrify those who handle their pale effigies, uninformed by that secret magic which only appertains to absorbing things done for the first time.

Hail! to the mighty dead, whose incommunicable touch is still felt by millions upon millions from generation to generation!

Hail! to the mystic life, which still circulates throughout the arteries of ten thousand orchestral organisms!

Hail! to the undying names of those who first imprisoned (in order to set free) the passionate longings and divine aspirations of humanity--in the

SOUL OF A CREMONA!

Nicolaus Amatus Cremonen. Hieronymi Fil., ac Antonij Nepos Fecit.

Gasparo da Salo, In Brescia.

Andres Guarnerius fecit Cremonæ sub titulo Sanctæ Teresiæ 1696

Joseph Guarnerius fecit ✠ Cremona anno 1793 IHS

Gio Paolo Maggini in Brescia.

Anno 1733 Carlo Bergonzi fece in Cremona

Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1709 ]

DICTIONARY OF VIOLIN MAKERS

AACHNER, Philipp. A Mittenwalder, 1772; ordinary German characteristics.

ABBATI, Giuseppe. He worked at Modena, according to Forster,
1775-93.

ABSAM, Thomas. Lived at Wakefield, in Yorkshire; but his name,
identical with the birthplace of Stainer, suggests a German origin.
Employed by Pickard, of Leeds; his labels run: “Made by Thomas
Absam, Wakefield.” Date 1810-49.

ACEVO. Doubtful whether he ever existed. Fétis saw a bass viol
which he connected with his name. It was signed at the back, “Marin
Marais,” but it is all very shadowy.

ADAM, Jean Dominique, son of Jean Adam. Both worked at Mirecourt,
according to Vidal; both made bows, and the son made the best, and
signed all he sold himself, 1823-69.

ADAMS, C. Takes rank merely as a local maker at Garmouth, Scotland,
1800.

AGLIO, Giuseppe dall’, of Mantua; varnish bright yellow, 1800-40.

AIRETON (Airton), Edmund, of London. Made good fiddles on the Amati
and Steiner models; he varnished yellow, 1727-1807.

ALBANESI, Sebastiano, is said to have lived at Cremona; his work is
almost unknown, 1720-44.

ALBANI, Mathias, b. about 1621, Botzen (Tyrol); d. there 1673.
(_See_ p. 102.)

ALBERTI, Ferdinando. Milanese; yellow varnish. Label: “Ferdinando
Alberti, fece in Milano, nella contrada delle pesce al segno della
Corona, nel anno 1740-60.”

ALDRIC. Maker and great repairer. Labels: “Fait par Aldric,” or
“Rue de Seine, 71, près celle de Bussy, Aldric, luthier, Paris, an.
18--.” (_See_ p. 174.)

ALESSANDRO. A Venetian maker, 1540.

ALETZIE, Paul. Worked at Munich; good tenors and violoncellos,
German type, 1710-20.

ALLARD, François. Successor of Maubert, 9 rue du Petit-Pont,
1788-89.

ALVANI. A Cremonese maker, 1750.

AMATI, Andrea. The father of the Cremona school, 1525. (_See_ Chap.
V.)

AMATI, Antonio, elder son of Andrea Amati; b. Cremona about 1560.
(_See_ Chap. V.)

AMATI, Girolamo, second son of Andrea Amati; b. about 1562. (_See_
Chap. V.)

AMATI, Girolamo, third son and successor of Nicola Amati; b. Feb.
26, 1649. (_See_ Chap. V.)

AMATI, Giuseppe. Said to have lived in Bologna, seventeenth
century. (_See_ Chap. V.)

AMATI, Nicola, younger brother of Andrea Amati, is said to have
worked with him, 1568-80. (_See_ Chap. V.)

AMATI, Nicola, son of Girolamo Amati; b. Dec. 3, 1596; d. April
12, 1684, aged eighty-eight, according to the registers of Cremona
Cathedral. (_See_ Chap. V.)

AMBROGI, Pietro. Cremona and Rome. “Petrus Ambrogi, Crem. fecit
Romæ, an. 17--.”

AMBROSI, Pietro. A Brescian maker; very mediocre, 1712.

AMBROSIO, Antonio d’. Neapolitan, 1820.

AMELOT. French maker in Lorient; yellow varnish; mediocre, 1812-29.

ANCIAUME. Existence doubtful.

ANSELMO, Pietro. Cremona and Venice; small pattern; deep yellow
varnish; fair maker, 1700.

ANTONIAZZI, Gregorio. Bergamo, 1738; labels bear: “in Colle, 1738.”

ANTONIO, Cypriano.

ANTONY, Girolamo. Cremonese pattern; yellow varnish, 1751.

ARDENOIS, Johannes. Ghent, 1731.

ARTMANN. Weimar, cir. 1760; pupil of Ernst of Gotha; Amati pattern;
yellow varnish.

ASKEY, Samuel. Pupil of John Morrison; employed by Corsby, cir.
1825.

ASSALONE, Gaspare. Roman; Amati pattern; over-arched; poor yellow
varnish.

AUBRY. Paris; a nephew of Aldric (who dealt with Tarisio); inferior
to his uncle, 1840.

AUDINOT, Nestor Dominique, b. at Mirecourt 1842; worked under
Sébastien Vuillaume; took up his business in 1875 at the age of
seventeen; is very industrious, and makes excellent instruments.
Labels: “N. Audinot, luthier, élève de Vuillaume, Paris.”

AUGIÈRE. Pupil of Clément, Paris; good maker; red and brown
varnish, 1830.

BAADER, J. A., & Co. Mittenwald; wholesale producers on cheapest
terms; their Stainer copies are good, 1854.

BACHELIER. Inferior French maker, 1777-89.

BACHMANN, Carl Ludwig. An excellent maker of Berlin, 1716-1800;
violins, violas, and ’cellos often mistaken for Cremonas; a viola
player; maker to the Prussian Court; founder of the Berlin Amateur
Concerts; inventor of screw pegs for double-basses.

BACHMANN, O. Good maker, of Halberstadt; first-rate repairer; wrote
on violin construction, 1835.

BAGATELLA (Bagattella), Antonio. Padua; good restorer; much
employed by German princes; made few good instruments, but wrote
learnedly on violin construction, 1750-82.

BAGATELLA (Bagattella), Pietro. Padua, 1760-66.

BAILLY, Paul. Mirecourt; fair maker; Chicago Exhibitor, 1893.

BAINES. London; pupil of Furber, 1780.

BAIRHOF, Giorgio. Naples; Gagliano school.

BAJONI, Luigi. Milanese, 1840-76.

BAKER, Francis. London, 1696.

BAKER, John. Oxford, 1688-1720; excellent tone; yellow varnish;
transition maker.

BALESTRIERI (Balestieri), Pietro, brother of Tommaso. (_See_ p. 88.)

BALESTRIERI (Balestieri). Tommaso, brother of Pietro. (_See_ p. 88.)

BALLANTINE. Scotch, 1850-56.

BANKS, Benjamin, son of George and Barbary Banks, 1727-95. (_See_
pp. 130-132.)

BANKS, Benjamin, second son of Benjamin Banks (1727-95), b. Sept.
13, 1754; d. Jan. 22, 1820. (_See_ pp. 130-132.)

BANKS, James and Henry, fourth and sixth sons of B. Banks
(1727-95). (_See_ pp. 130-132.)

BARBANTI, Silva Francesco. A maker at Correggio, 1850.

BARBIERI, Francesco. Veronese; early Guarnerian pattern, 1695.

BARNES, Robert Pupil of Thomas Smith; set up with John Norris,
1765; employed Aireton, but used their own trade label.

BARNIA, Fedele. Milanese, 1716-51.

BAROUX. Paris; very good bow-maker, 1830.

BARRETT, John. London; a contemporary of Barak Norman and Nathaniel
Cross; long and arched pattern; yellow varnish; sweet tone;
labelled: “John Barrett, at the Harp and Crown in Pickadilly,
London, 1731.”

BARTON, George. London; d. cir. 1810.

BASSOT, Joseph. Paris; fine maker; brown and reddish varnish;
earlier yellow and inferior; label: “Joseph Bassot, luthier, Paris,
1802.”

BAUD. Versailles; experimented omitting sound-bar, but not a
success.

BAUSCH, Ludwig Christian. Good bow-maker; Naumburg and Leipsic,
1805-71.

BAUSCH, Excellent bow-maker; silver medallist, Dresden; friend of
Spohr, 1840.

BECKMANN (Bekman), Sweno. Stockholm; rough maker, 1700-6.

BEDLER, Norbert. Würzburg, 1723.

BELA, Szepessy. Good contemporary maker; worked at Budapest and
Munich, and is now in London; copies Strad and N. Amati.

BELLONE, Pietro Antonio, known as Il Pescorino, Milanese, 1694.

BELLOSIO, Anselmo. Venetian; pupil of Serafino and master of M. A.
Cerin, 1720-80.

BELVIGLIERI, Gregorio. Fairly good Bolognese maker, 1742.

BENEDICT, Jose. Cadiz, 1738.

BENEDICTI, Donate de. Cremona, 1674.

BENTI, Matteo, b. 1579. Brescia; contemporary of Maggini.

BERETTA, Felice. Como; Guadagnini school; bow-maker, 1760-85.

BERGÉ. Toulouse, 1771.

BERGONZI, Benedetto, d. 1840. (_See_ p. 86.)

BERGONZI, Carlo. Cremona; the first of the great Bergonzi family of
makers; b. (?); d. 1747.

BERGONZI, Carlo, third son of Michel Angelo. (_See_ p. 86.)

BERGONZI (Baganzi), Francesco. Named as early as 1687.

BERGONZI, Michel Angelo, son of Carlo; b. 1722; d. after 1765.

BERGONZI, Nicola, eldest son of Michel Angelo.

BERGONZI, Zosimo, brother of Nicola.

BERNARDEL, Auguste Sébastien Philippe. An excellent maker who
worked under Lupôt and Gand. Firm: “Bernardel et fils,” then “Gand
et Bernardel”; Paris (1849) gold medal, London (1855) gold medal.

BERNARDEL Frères. Ernst Auguste and Gustave Adolphe, sons of
Sébastien Philippe.

BERTASIO, Luigi. Piadena, 17--.

BERTASSI, Ambrogio. Piadena, 1730.

BERTET, Joseph R. French maker; little known, 1754.

BERTRAND, Nicolas. Paris; a few early fiddles, 1686-1735.

BETTS, John Edward, known as “Old John Betts”; b. 1755, at
Stamford, Lincolnshire; d. March 1823; was buried at Cripplegate
Church; pupil of Richard Duke, senior. (_See_ p. 132.)

BETTS (Ned), Edward, nephew of John Betts; like him a pupil of
Richard Duke. He died between 1815 and 1820.

BIANCHI, Nicola. Pupil of Guadagnini, 1800 to 1875; Genoa, Cremona,
and Paris; fair maker.

BINDERNAGEL. Gotha, 1745-1804; inferior maker.

BITTNER, David. Viennese, 1862-80; made chiefly for America.

BLAIR, John. Edinburgh, 1820.

BLAISE, Mirecourt. 1820; indifferent.

BLANCHARD, Paul François, 1865-94; worked with J. B. Vuillaume;
very good violins; his workmen turn out good cheap ones; follows
Strad; Mirecourt and Lyons.

BODIO, Giambattista. Venice, 1792-1832.

BOIVIN, Claude. Paris, 1735-53; fair maker.

BOMBERGHI, Lorenzo. Florentine, seventeenth century.

BOMÉ, Thomas. Inferior; French.

BOOTH, William. English; 1779-1858; good repairer.

BOOTH, William, son of W. Booth, senior; b. 1816, Leeds; d. 1856; a
clever workman.

BOQUAY (Bocquay), Jacques, b. at Lyons. 1700-30. (_See_ p. 105.)

BORBON (Bourbon), Gaspar. End of sixteenth century; Brussels;
Gaspar model.

BORELLI, Andreas, 1730-47; Parma; Guadagnini model.

BORLON, François. Antwerp maker, 1680-1710.

BOUCHER. London, 1764.

BOULLANGIER, Charles, b. 1823, Mirecourt; d. October, 1888. Learnt
his trade in Mirecourt till 1843; worked with Vuillaume and Gand
and Bernardel, also for Edward Withers, London; good copyist of
Strad.

BOUMEESTER (Baumeester). Amsterdam maker, 1637-68.

BOURDET, Jacques. Fair French maker, 1751.

BOURGARD, Jean. Worked in Nancy about 1780-87.

BOUSSU. Bruxelles about 1750-80; fairly good Amati pattern.

BRAGLIA, Antonio. Modena, eighteenth century.

BRANDIGLIONI. Brescia; copied Maggini.

BRANDL, Karl. Budapest; exhibited in London Exhibition, 1862.

BRANZO, Barbaro Francesco. Padua, 1660.

BREMEISTER, Jan. Amsterdam, 1707.

BRETON, J. F. Paris, 1740-80.

BRETON, Le, b. 1780, at Mirecourt. No great value; 1812 to 1830.

BROSCHI, Carlo. Parma, 1730-44.

BROWN, James, b. 1755, d. Sept. 1830. Silk weaver in Shoreditch,
London; pupil of Thomas Kennedy; chiefly a repairer of instruments.

BROWN, James, jun., son of the above; both father and son fair
workmen; b. Nov. 1786; d. 1860, at White Lion Street, Norton
Folgate; apprenticed to his father, but was principally employed to
make bows.

BROWN, son and pupil of James Brown, jun. When about twenty years
old, ceased to make instruments.

BROWNE, John. Cornhill, London, 1743; copied Nicholas Amati.

BRUBACH, Antoine, b. Jan. 22, 1847, Mirecourt; head of “Klein et
Cie.,” Rouen.

BRUGÈRE, Charles Georges, b. Nov. 10, 1865, at Mirecourt; excellent
maker; only labels what he makes himself.

BRUGÈRE, Charles Malakoff, d. 1894. Son of above; made about 100
good fiddles; the family still work at Mirecourt.

BRUGÈRE, François, brother of Charles Joseph Brugère. Had three
sons, all makers.

BUCHSTADTER (Buchstetter), Gabriel David. Ratisbon, 1752; Cremona
flat pattern; good orchestral instruments.

BUDIANI, Giavetta. Some of his large bass viols adapted for
double-basses with four strings; contemporary of G. P. Maggini.

BUONFIGLIUOLI, Pier Francesco. Florentine, seventeenth century.

BURGLE, Johann. A maker in Griezbach, 1828.

BUSAS, Domenico. Vicenza, 1740.

BUSSETO (Buseto), Giammaria del. Cremonese viol-maker, 1540-80;
said to have taught Andrea Amati.

BUSSOT. Paris, 1788.

BUTHOD. Cheap Mirecourt maker; good strong fiddles fit for
orchestral use; turned out about 900 instruments a year;
contemporary of Vuillaume.

CABROLI, Lorenzo. Milan about 1716; indifferent.

CABROLY. Toulouse about 1740-47; fair.

CAESTE, Gaetano. Cremona in 1677.

CAESTO (Caesta), Pietro Antonio della. Treviso, 1660-80; copied
Strad.

CAHUSAC. London about 1788. Worked with Banks’s sons.

CALCANI (Calcagni), Bernardo. In Genoa, 1710-50; copied Strad
carefully and with good effect.

CALONARDI, Marco. Cremona, seventeenth century.

CALOT (Callot), b. 1810. Paris and Mirecourt; fine workman: good
tone.

CALVAROLLA, Bartolommeo, of Torre Baldone (Bergamo). About 1753-67,
Bologna and Bergamo; fair.

CAMILLI, Camillus (Camilus di Camila). Mantua about 1739-50; copied
Strad; resembles also Landolfi; excellent tone.

CAMILLIO, Davido. Cremona, 1755.

CAPPA, Giofredo (Goffredo), 1590-1640. Worked with the Amatis;
unequal in work; his instruments have often been cut down.

CAPPA, Giachimo (Gioacchino) and Giuseppe. Working in Saluzzio, and
in Turin about 1661-1712; indifferent.

CARCASSI, Lorenzo Francesco and Tommaso. Florence, about 1735-58;
not first-rate.

CARLO, Giuseppe. Milan, 1769.

CARLOMORDI, Carlo. Verona in 1654.

CARON. Versailles, 1775-85. Maker to the Queen; not remarkable.

CARTER, John. Worked in London, 1780-90, for John Betts. Good;
often sold for Betts’.

CASINI (Cassini), Antonio. Modena about 1660 to 1700. Made large
violoncellos; fair.

CASPAN, Giampietro. Venice about 1650; Amati pattern; violins
small, yellow varnish.

CASSANELLI, Giovanni. Ciano in 1777.

CASSINEAU. Paris; maker of all sorts.

CASTAGNERY (Castagneri), Andrea. Worked in Paris, 1732-57; he made
good instruments.

CASTAGNERY (Castagneri), Gian Paolo. A maker from Cremona, who
worked in Paris about 1630-62; very good and sweet tone.

CASTELLANI, Luigi, son of Pietro Castellani. Florence, 1809-84;
good restorer of fiddles, but made none.

CASTELLANI, Pietro, b. Florence, second half of the eighteenth
century. Made only a few violins.

CASTELLO, Paolo. Genoa about 1750-80; fair.

CASTRO. Worked in Venice, 1680-1720; indifferent appearance, but
good wood.

CATENAR (Catenari), Enrico. Turin about 1670; fair; a follower of
Cappa.

CATI, Pier Antonio. Florence, 1741; famous for his “kits.”

CAVALORIO. Geneva, 1725.

CELLINI, Giovanni, the father of Benvenuto Cellini, b. in Florence;
d. there of the pest, 1527 or 1528. Architect; lute and viol maker.
His viols, made about 1500-5, had a great reputation.

CELONIATI (Celionati), Giam Francesco, 1732. Good maker; Amati
pattern; yellow varnish. “Joannes Franciscus Taurini, anno 1732.”

CERIN, Marc Antonio. A maker in Venice, 1780-93; pupil of Anselmo
Bellosio; fair maker.

CERUTI, Enrico, son of Giuseppe Ceruti; b. 1808; d. Oct. 20, 1883.
Cremona, at 14 Via Borgo Spera; made about 365 instruments; much
esteemed in Italy.

CERUTI, Giovanni Battista, 1755, Cremona; d. 1817. Pupil of Lorenzo
Storioni; good; made about 500 instruments; varnish yellow.

CERUTI, Giuseppe, son and successor of Giovanni Battista, 1787; d.
1860, Mantua. Fair maker; chiefly repairer.

CHALLONER, Thomas. Worked in London in the eighteenth century.

CHAMPION, Jean Baptiste. Paris in 1783.

CHAMPION, René. Paris, 1731; finished and graceful; varnished like
Boquay.

CHANOT, François, son of a musical instrument maker in Mirecourt;
b. 1787, d. 1828. (_See_ p. 112.)

CHANOT, Georges, a brother of François; b. March 26, 1801; d. Jan.
10, 1883.

CHANOT, Georges, son of Georges Chanot.

CHANOT, G. A. Manchester.

CHAPPUY (Chapuy), Nicolas Augustin. Paris about 1732-76; fairly
good; badly varnished. Fr. Habeneck played on one of his violins
for many years.

CHARDON, Marie Joseph, son-in-law and pupil of Georges Chanot,
sen.; b. May 22, 1843, Paris. He succeeded his father-in-law in
1872; good maker; better restorer.

CHARDON, Marie Joseph Antoine Georges. Worked under his father.

CHARLE. Paris in 1748.

CHARLES, Theress. From Mirecourt, but settled in London, in King
Street, Soho.

CHAROTTE. Mirecourt; d. 1836; settled in Rouen in 1830; indifferent.

CHATELAIN, François. About 1777-91; good maker; collaborated
sometimes with Renault.

CHÉRON, Nicolas. Paris, 1658-91.

CHERPITEL, Nicolas Emile. Mirecourt, 1841-93; worked with the Gands
at Paris; very good workman.

CHEVRIER, André Augustin, b. in Mirecourt. Paris, and then in
Brussels, 1838.

CHIAVELLATI, Domenico. Lonigo in 1796.

CHIBON, Jean Robert. Paris, 1775-85; indifferent.

CHIOCCHI (Chiocci), Gaetano. In Padua nineteenth century; good
maker and repairer.

CHRÉTIEN, Hippolyte, 1845-89. Lyons; excellent maker and restorer.

CHRISTA, Joseph Paul. About 1730-40.

CHRISTOPHLE, Jean. Avignon, 1655.

CLARK. London, living at Clerkenwell. A pupil of Matthew Furber.

CLAUDOT, Augustin. Paris, beginning of eighteenth century; large
pattern, yellow varnish; wood good, work carefully finished;
branded his instruments with his name, “Augustin Claudot.”

CLAUDOT, Charles. Paris; but probably came from Mirecourt;
indifferent.

CLÉMENT. Paris, about 1815-40, in the rue des Bonnes-Enfants; a
good deal sought after.

COFFE-GOGUETTE. Mirecourt, 1834; excellent maker; fine tone.

COLE, James. Manchester; pupil of Tarr and George Crask, 1858.

COLE, Thomas. London about 1672-90; good tenor maker.

COLLIER, Samuel. London, at “Corelli’s Head” on London Bridge,
about 1750-55.

COLLIER, Thomas. London, 1775.

COLLIN, Claude Nicolas. Mirecourt; d. 1864; pupil of N. F.
Vuillaume, Brussels.

COLLIN-MÉZIN, Charles Jean Baptiste, son of C. N. Collin.
Mirecourt, 1841-89; excellent maker and restorer; good Strad and
Amati copyist.

COLLINGWOOD, Joseph. Worked in London about 1760, at the “Golden
Spectacles” on London Bridge.

CONTRERAS, Joseph, 1710-80. Madrid or “Granadino”; beautiful Strad
copyist; has passed for Strad.

CONTRERAS, son of Joseph Contreras.

CONWAY, William. London about 1745-50.

CORDANO, Jacopo Filippo. Genoa about 1774.

CORNELLI, Carlo. Cremona, 1702.

CORSBY, George. London; believed to be a brother of Corsby of
Northampton.

CORSBY. Northampton about 1780; chiefly made double-basses.

COSTA, Agostino. Brescia and Venice in the seventeenth century.

COSTA, Marco della. Treviso, 1660-80.

COSTA, Pietro Antonio della. Worked in Treviso about 1740-65; fair
Amati model.

COUSINEAU, Georges, 1753-1824. In 1788 was entitled “Luthier de la
reine”; made all sorts of instruments.

CRAMOND, Charles. A maker in Aberdeen, 1821-34.

CRASK, George. Worked in various places, Salford, Manchester, etc.;
prolific worker; Italian pattern.

CROSS, Nathaniel. London about 1700-51. (_See_ p. 125.)

CROWTHER, John, 1755-1810. He worked occasionally for John Kennedy.

CUCHET, Gaspard, 1729.

CUNAULT, Georges, b. 1856, Paris; Miremont, 1874-82; a good workman.

CUNY. Paris about 1740.

CUTHBERT. Maker of viols and violins in London, seventeenth
century; fair.

CUYPERS, Johannes. The Hague about 1779.

DANIEL. Antwerp about 1636-56; two specimens in Antwerp Cathedral.

DANIEL, Charles. Marseilles in 1762.

DARCHE, C. F. Brussels; was a pupil of N. F. Vuillaume (a brother
of the Parisian maker); better restorer than maker.

DARCHE, Nicholas. Aix-la-Chapelle.

DAVID. A contemporary of Pierray; Paris about 1730; indifferent.

DAVIDSON, Hay. Huntly, 1870.

DAVIS, Richard. London; employed by Norris and Barnes; but when
Norris died in 1818, he succeeded to the business. He knew little
of violin-making, and always remained more of a dealer in, than a
maker of, instruments.

DAVIS, William. London (in 1846 sold business to Edward Withers);
restored violins; Maucotel worked for him.

DAY, John. Ingenious amateur maker, devoted to reproduction of
Cremonas, nineteenth century.

DEARLOVE, Mark. Leeds, 1812-20.

DEARLOVE, Mark William, son of Mark Dearlove. Leeds, 1828-62;
employed good workmen--Absam, Gough, Fryer.

DECOMBE (not De Comble). Paris, eighteenth century.

DE COMBLE, Ambroise, b. at Tournai, Belgium, end of the seventeenth
century; worked till 1760; said to have been a pupil of Antonio
Stradivari at Cremona; instruments scarce, well made, of excellent
wood, and have a rich tone.

DECONET, Michele. Venice about 1742-79; Cremona school.

DEFRESNE, Pierre. Rouen, 1730.

DEHAYE (Deshayes), nephew and only pupil of Salomon, 1775-1825,
Paris; more dealer than maker; sold all sorts.

DEHOMMAIS, 1870. Successful amateur maker.

DE LANNOY, N.J. Lille about 1740-75; fair maker.

DELANOE, Pierre Jean. Paris, 1754.

DELANOIX. Brussels about 1760; good maker.

DELANY (Delaney), John. Dublin in 1808; an original egotist, 1808.
Label bears: “Made by John Delany, in order to perpetuate his
memory in future ages. Dublin, 1808. Liberty to all the world,
black and white.”

DELAU, Lucien, 1836-48. On the death of Charotte he joined Jeandel
in violin-making, and they continued the business at Rouen.

DENNIS, Jesse, 1795-1855. London; apprenticed to John Crowther,
1805; worked under Matthew Furber.

DERAZEY, J. Mirecourt; successor to J. Nicolas, jun.; sold his
fiddles; made good cheap ones, from 5 to 150 francs; a prolific
firm.

DEROUX, Sébastien. Mirecourt and Paris; b. 1848; making in 1898;
good restorer; best Cremona models. Signs: “A. S. D.”