Joseph Guarnerius Del Gesu 1744

[GoldenPlate]

Just saw this violin on Bongartz auction.

http://www.bongartz-auktionen.de/Bongartz_Katalog_78_Auktion.pdf

Lot 97

[stephen maloney]

Only the top is del Gesu, if my translator is working properly. The rest is Montagnana. Interesting composite.

[fiddlecollector]

I find it interesting ` The front was prepared by Guarnerius del Gésù personally specially for this instrument.` Or is my schoolboy German out?

[fiddlecollector]

Also another example of an auctionhouse playing on a big name. Would a JTL with a Collin-Mezin top be called a Collin-Mezin?

[jacobsaunders]

I find it interesting ` The front was prepared by Guarnerius del Gésù personally specially for this instrument.` Or is my schoolboy German out?

I don't think that your schoolboy German is out at all. Bongartz writes:

Die Decke ist von Guarnerius del Gésù höchstpersönlich speziell für dieses Instrument angefertigt worden. In ihm vereinigt sich eine ideale Symbiose des besten Cellobauers mit dem wohl genialsten Geigenmacher aller Zeiten. Guarneri del Gésù hat die Arbeit seines Zeitgenossen als seine eigene "adoptiert" und 1744 mit seinem Original-Zettel versehen.

"The belly is from DG personally specialy made for this instrument.............Guarneri del Gesu adopted the work of his contempoary as his own, and signed it with his 1744 label"

Although he doesn't provide one scrap of evidence for what sounds a bit of a tall story(?)

[stephen maloney]

I think that historically it might have gone something like this. Domenico texts del Gesu on his iPhone.

Dom: "Dude, I'm going to be in Cremona next week, gotta see my doctor and get bled and pick up some of that orange varnish at the pharmacy. Can I crash at your place? I'll bring some beers and that violin I haven't had a chance to make the top for, you know, the one I mentioned last time".

GDG: "Yo, that's no problem. Don't sweat the top, I'll give you one of mine, man. Get your a** over here in time for the game; I'll have steaks ready."

[DGerald StephenR]

I really like the scroll profile of that J. F. Pressenda

[bean_fidhleir]

I'm not sure your translation captures the full, dripping purpleness of this passage, Jacob

Die Decke ist von Guarnerius del Gésù höchstpersönlich speziell für dieses Instrument angefertigt worden. In ihm vereinigt sich eine ideale Symbiose des besten Cellobauers mit dem wohl genialsten Geigenmacher aller Zeiten

"The top was prepared especially for this instrument with the highest level of personal attention by Guarneri del Gesú. In him are combined in an ideal symbiosis the best cello maker with the most approachable violin maker of all time"

I find that I can't come up with a way in English to fully capture the purpleness either. But I think I got at least some of it.

Nice to know the fiddle is "Hochbedeutende" even tho a composite.

[Ben Hebbert]

I find it interesting ` The front was prepared by Guarnerius del Gésù personally specially for this instrument.` Or is my schoolboy German out?

Not completely without precedent, the 1740 Carbonelli inventory includes a violin "by Martino Otho Bolognese, and revised by Antonio Stradivari in 1723". A violin matching this description (with a Stradivari front) is known. The c.1685 Sauret Stradivari has either a later top fitted for it by Strad, or otherwise by some very clever Venetian (that's the one Gardiner Houlgate tried to sell five or six years ago).

All I'm saying is that there are precidents. I ain't sayin' nuffink more, guv'nor

[stephen maloney]

"The top was prepared especially for this instrument with the highest level of personal attention by Guarneri del Gesú. In him are combined in an ideal symbiosis the best cello maker with the most approachable violin maker of all time"

I find that I can't come up with a way in English to fully capture the purpleness either.

I think in English we use the term bullshi*, but I was unaware that European dung was coloured purple. Truly, one learns something new every day.

[David Frederick]

I think that historically it might have gone something like this. Domenico texts del Gesu on his iPhone.

Dom: "Dude, I'm going to be in Cremona next week, gotta see my doctor and get bled and pick up some of that orange varnish at the pharmacy. Can I crash at your place? I'll bring some beers and that violin I haven't had a chance to make the top for, you know, the one I mentioned last time".

GDG: "Yo, that's no problem. Don't sweat the top, I'll give you one of mine, man. Get your a** over here in time for the game; I'll have steaks ready."

Not sure this would be plausible , texting aside, I believe it is widely held that in the cremonese tradition the top would have been finished before the back and already glued to the ribs once the neck was set. If anything, it may be a repair of a broken top or a really nice job of putting together a composite.

[stephen maloney]

I have a background in industrial antiques among other fields; in that field an assembled piece like this is called, simply, an "assemblage". It's something cobbled together, in the violin world it's a composite. What else can be proven about it otherwise other than makes for good advertising copy is the question. Perhaps there is a good answer. I have found that for there to be an acausal relationship between two disparate elements is one thing, to assert a direct causal relationship is getting into very tall grass.

[Ben Hebbert]

I think in English we use the term bullshi*, but I was unaware that European dung was coloured purple. Truly, one learns something new every day.

- side effects of eating too much beetroot! Yum!

[jacobsaunders]

for there to be an acausal relationship between two disparate elements is one thing, to assert a direct causal relationship is getting into very tall grass.

you mean (in plain english) they had to alter the rib outline to fit the label?