Jump to content
Maestronet Forums

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 64
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted

 

 One should not make the mistake of saying that a fiddle with such a corner block must be Saxon etc. though, since I have seen the same when removing the back of instruments of the Gagliano family (no fear of this mistake in OP case though!), leaving me to wonder if they first learnt from some immigrant from Füssen or Vils, who earlier did it like that too.
 
 

 

Your note about Gagliano's training by Füssen immigrants is in accordance with J.Dilworth's essay about the Brompton's Allessandro Gagliano, especially the construction without an inner mould:

 

http://www.bromptons.co/reference-library/articles/article-3946-alessandro-gagliano.html

 

Did you discuss it with him before?

 

In a  modern south-italian/calabrian violin I found another kind of "corner blocks" for the 3): very small triangular plates glued on the back, just to hold the ribs in position (I tried to make photos, but I didn't manage it untill now).

Posted

Your note about Gagliano's training by Füssen immigrants is in accordance with J.Dilworth's essay about the Bonham's Allessandro Gagliano, especially the construction without an inner mould:

 

http://www.bromptons.co/reference-library/articles/article-3946-alessandro-gagliano.html

 

Did you discuss it with him before?

 

 

 
No, it has been a few years since I last met John, London is a long way from Vienna, so thanks for the link! Nice to have someone like him agreeing with me for a change, :)  although I think that anyone with his/her eyes open can come to an obvious conclusion. Gagliano wasn’t really the subject of my short essay (Post #46) though, but just a random example that came to me, to show why one with this method can only reliably say what some instrument isn’t, rather than is, to narrow things down with the old “process of elimination”
Posted

I'm sorry, that I (not for the first time) was confusing Bonham's and Brompton's (sounds like Bons and Bromts), but it's not random or coincidence IMO, that you mentioned the Gaglianos. It's a remarkable point, that instruments so different in many other points, from different geographical regions (Vogtland, Füssen, south Italy) and, last but in no way least, very different value are similar in such an important point as the construction of the "skeleton".

  • 7 months later...
Posted

It looks like a French fiddle to me, clearly a Guarneri model. There was a Frederick William Chanot working in London but the labels were somewhat different to your violin and he tended to copy the style of the early Bernardel.

 

Yours looks like a nice instrument though and I hope it gives you much pleasure.

 

 

Brian

Posted

It looks like a French fiddle to me, clearly a Guarneri model. There was a Frederick William Chanot working in London but the labels were somewhat different to your violin and he tended to copy the style of the early Bernardel.

If you would read through the thread, you would learn why it comes from the Markneukirchen area, although I suppose remaining an unadulterated cretin, is probably a human right

Posted

And another one bites the dust.

 

JacobS, just as a matter of interest, relating to a previous ID thread I started where you were able to decipher the hand-written label: what nuances may there be to the term "erbaut"? Is it simply "built" or "made", or more like "assembled" or something like that?

Posted

what nuances may there be to the term "erbaut"? Is it simply "built" or "made", or more like "assembled" or something like that?

 

 

"bauen"       means         "to build" or "to construct".   "gebaut" is the past participle:"built"

 

"erbauen" means also    "to build"  or "to construct".  "erbaut" is the past participle: "built" (*)

 

 

"erbauen" is  a a more formal word, and it is usually  used only if you speak about the construction of a major structure. It does NOT suggest that the object was merely assembled from prefabricated parts

 

For example you would say:  

    "Das Haus wurde 1970 gebaut"  ("The house was built in 1970"), 

but

   "Die Kathedrale wurde in vierzehnten Jahrhundert erbaut"   ("The cathedral was built in the 14th century").

or

   "Rom wurde nicht an einem Tag erbaut" ("Rome wasn't built in a day")

 

 

To an educated German  it sounds a little overblown to say that a violin was "erbaut".

 

 

 

In older times violins   were simply "gemacht" (made) by a "Geigenmacher" (violin maker) and only houses and ships were "gebaut" (built).

Today however it is more common to say that violins are "gebaut" (built), and  violin makers are officially called "Geigenbauer" (violin builder).

 

((*) The German past participle has a "ge-" prefix, unless the verb is a compound  (like "er-bauen"). So it is "gebaut" and "erbaut" but not "geerbaut")

Posted

In addition this overblown verb "erbaut" is usually found on labels of amateurs or, as in the case you mentioned, by dealers or "Schönbach-box-finishers", who put their name into "buildings", which were for the most part made by other hands, just to cover this deception.

Dear Brian, don't be indignant by the slightly impatient speech of our professor, but it was clearly worked out before, that the OP violin shows in the construction of the ribs (post#46), and smaller details (form of the button, I could mention the unelegant pegbox with extra large ducktail, too) can only be of a Schönbach/Markneukirchen origin. Also I cannot find a pattern which is similar to any member of the Guarneri family, more the common saxon and bohemian somehow blurred mix between Strad/Guadagnini/Pressenda models.

Posted

Seems strange, to me, that old glue residue is only around the perimeter of the area of the label.  Isn't the entire back of the label usually smeared with glue?   Also, after 120 +/- years, shouldn't the wood under the removed label be a little lighter in color than the surrounding area?

Posted

In addition this overblown verb "erbaut" is usually found on labels of amateurs or, as in the case you mentioned, by dealers or "Schönbach-box-finishers", who put their name into "buildings", which were for the most part made by other hands, just to cover this deception.

 

 

Many thanks!

Posted

Many thanks!

Good morning, Jacob vS! My daughter arrived just yesterday in Jo'burg, will stay one month for work (nothing to do with violins, she does geology).

I'm expecting interesting reports about the country.

  • 10 years later...
Posted
On 8/17/2013 at 5:34 PM, jacobsaunders said:
 
Certainly, if you take the very useful discipline of corner-blockology to heart.
 
One should first remember, that back in times when one started learning violin-making as a 13 year old, one followed the master's instructions without thinking too much, and invariably proceeded to work along the same lines for the rest of one's life. This should not be confused with the present, where people drift into making, in their 20s or 30s, seriously or as dilettantes, and who mostly tend to have their heads seriously in the way. This, learning as almost a child, and learning the method of the area, is really useful for authenticating fiddles, although more for establishing what something isn’t, rather than what something is.
 
To try and simplify things, there are a variety of ways to build a rib cage; The most common:
 
1) Inside mould. The blocks glued to the mould, then cut to shape in the middle, then first the centre bouts bent and glued onto the blocks, the rest of the block shaped then the upper and lower ribs bent and glued on.  This will normally finish with a block with about double the length of contact to the upper and lower rib, that to the centre ones. It will also make one piece top & bottom ribs more common, since if your wood is long enough, you would have to be pretty daft to cut it in half, only to have to make a joint afterwards. Roger has explored elsewhere what function letting the middle bout linings into the blocks could have. When you have finished, you will plane the ribs (incl. blocks & linings) flat, giving a flat gluing surface.
 
2) Outside mould. (as I learnt it from my father as a child) First the upper and lower ribs are bent and put into the mould, with the corners shoved hard into the corners. This makes a one piece top or bottom rib unlikely, since you can’t shove both ends into opposite corners hard at the same time. Then the middle rib is bent,and cut off first a little to long, then bit by bit shortened until it mitres into both the corners at the same time. For this reason, anyone but the most fastidious nutter, will mitre the corners a little sharper than necessary, so they fit tight right at the end (where you will see it from outside on the finished violin) and not at the inside of the mitre, which nobody, except a future repairman who removes a plate will see. Corner blocks will then be inserted afterwards (i.e. the opposite of inside mould) and will logically normally be more lightly to be an equilateral triangle from the plan view, i.e. same gluing area on both middle and upper/lower bouts. Then the ribs (incl. blocks and linings) are planed flat.
 
3) Building the ribs on the back, without a mould: First the back outline will be made (more or less). Then the ribs will be bent, or bought ready bent with linings on from the “Schachtelmacher” and tacked onto the back. The ends of the rib at the corners left long, so that you can get a cramp on to glue them together, and shortened afterwards, with the tendency to remain almost flush with the ends of the back outline at the corners. This method doesn’t necessarily require corner blocks and often doesn’t have any. When it does have corner blocks though, there are two different sorts to distinguish between. There were both “cosmetic” ones, just a bit of wood leaned against the corner to betray origin, and “proper” ones, inserted to hinder the rib corners from coming apart. These were fitted and inserted into the corners as the ribs were still tacked to the back. They fit well towards the inside of the back, but are cut off at a ca. 20° angle going into the rib corner, i.e. do not form part of the gluing area between block and back, but rather are just there to hold the ribs together. This can be well seen on a Schönfelder violin I have the back off in my workshop at the moment (J. C. Ficker did it too, and others), where one can be surprised to find that apparently perfect blocks have a hidden cavity, full of old glue. This is the “glue pattern” seen on the OP VSO. One should not make the mistake of saying that a fiddle with such a corner block must be Saxon etc. though, since I have seen the same when removing the back of instruments of the Gagliano family (no fear of this mistake in OP case though!), leaving me to wonder if they first learnt from some immigrant from Füssen or Vils, who earlier did it like that too.
 
Thus the significance for identification purposes. One knows for a fact that the Vogtländer/Egerländer used method No. 3, and Vienna/Prag/Mittenwald/South Tyrol makers No. 1 etc. and that method No. 2 was much later. Thus a violin with corner blocks as in method No. 1 can certainly not come from Markneukirchen, one that used method No. 2 can not be from early 19th C. Prague, a Bozen Jais can not possibly have been built using method No. 3 and so on ad infinitum. This is really useful when appraising for a court, where one is generally confronted with a room full of lawyers, who couldn’t tell a violin from a cello, but who will want FACTS and not opinions, although it won’t hinder the Ebay Mischpoche from arguing with you.

Minor additional questions...
- In your description of 'BOB', ...at what point in the assembly are the upper and lower blocks attached?
- In the 'BOB' construction there may be no corner blocks at all, there may be two (usually lower) or four... Is there any pattern related to the area or period of creation, describing using the type (cosmetic and proper) or number of blocks attached? Have there been violins that had 'mixed blocks', e.g. two upper 'cosmetic', two lower 'proper'?

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...