Any Guesses?

[GoldenPlate]

The outline looks quite interesting..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/A-very-interesting-and-very-old-violin-labelled-Philipus-Brandilioni-Brixae-17-/171149650869?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&nma=true&si=frh0jiad6Rd6%252BGIT0mUHJk0ZR2o%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

 

[chrissweden]

The scroll is not original and not well carved as the seller states.

 

The seller know his stuff

[Blank face]

Following the academic rules it could be from the Füssen/Vils in Tirol region.

The seller states only, that the scroll is grafted to a modern neck, not that it's unoriginal. To me it looks like a south-german(ic) scroll with an individual personality, no matter if it's fine carved or less fine, and it's style meets the body.

I bet my cents, that it will be relisted more or less later.

[Bernie R]

The scroll is not original and not well carved as the seller states.

 

 

 

What is the problem with the carving?

[hendrik]

That scroll has character, I quite like it. Are the  little protrusions at the end of the turns of any significance?.

 

The back looks possibly revarnished. It's quite shiny while the top is dirt stained and unpolished.

 

Blankface: why Füssen/Vils rather than Dutzend - other than the scroll ? Really broad shoulders, corners?

[fiddlecollector]

Looks like a Klotz type scroll to me,body looks further South

[Violadamore]

According to Henley and Brompton's Brandilioni was probably an Italianized German with Mittenwald (or "Tirol") roots.working in Brescia 1770's to 1830's.    An example is here: http://s21.photobucket.com/user/Dream_is_dead/media/viola-violin/PhilippusBrandilioniGeige1800.jpg.html

 

The ff holes look similar to me.  This offering could be real by all i can tell, I'd tread lightly here. 

[Bruce Carlson]

The outline looks quite interesting..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/A-very-interesting-and-very-old-violin-labelled-Philipus-Brandilioni-Brixae-17-/171149650869?_trksid=p2047675.l2557&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&nma=true&si=frh0jiad6Rd6%252BGIT0mUHJk0ZR2o%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

Similar in many ways to a 'Hopf model' from Klingenthal.

[Blank face]

That scroll has character, I quite like it. Are the  little protrusions at the end of the turns of any significance?.

 

The back looks possibly revarnished. It's quite shiny while the top is dirt stained and unpolished.

 

Blankface: why Füssen/Vils rather than Dutzend - other than the scroll ? Really broad shoulders, corners?

 

Why Füssen: The rib joints are sharp, leading to the ends of the corners and not parallel: It was built without an inner mould, rib construction free on the back, corner blocks inserted later. This construction method excludes Mittenwald, south Tirol, but not Füssen (according to the "Saunders academy" and my personal experience). The pattern with very short "hanging" upper bouts, wide opened C-bouts and upper and lower part nearly of the same width is a typical Füssen or Vils pattern (ca. 10 km way between both towns), also the "blown up" arching.

Compare the viola discussed in this thread:

http://www.maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/329266-huge-gap-between-estimate-and-sale-price-thoughts-on-why/

Dutzendarbeit exists since 1830/40, this violin is around 1800, it's the typical varnish of this time. Older Saxons almost have different patterns, Hopf or Hoyer have very square upper bouts, not only a very short flat range around the button area, or more rounded like Ficker or Meisel violins, and the purfling is more narrow. It can not be completely excluded, that this is a (old) saxon copy of a Füssen pattern, but it seems not very probable to me.

The scroll in a bit rough, but interesting workmanship shows the S-shape with broad back side and hanging volute of the south german school, not only used by Kloz or in Mittenwald, but in the whole region. In my eyes, there is a big probability, that it's original to the body (which is worked in the same manner), and this may exclude Saxony completely.

Füssen makers worked all over the south german and austrian region, it could be made at some other places there.

 

 

According to Henley and Brompton's Brandilioni was probably an Italianized German with Mittenwald (or "Tirol") roots.working in Brescia 1770's to 1830's.    An example is here: http://s21.photobucket.com/user/Dream_is_dead/media/viola-violin/PhilippusBrandilioniGeige1800.jpg.html

 

The ff holes look similar to me.  This offering could be real by all i can tell, I'd tread lightly here. 

The ff look similar sounds like "the violin has ff like Del Gesu, accordingly it is one".

IMO the pattern of the pictured violin (from which source?) is  much different from the pattern I described above, the varnish has a golden ground, different as the OP violin, the purfling is very broad and slightly irregular - if this is Brandolini, the OP violin surely not.

[martin swan]

Would be very surprised if either have anything to do with Brescia ...

"The seller knows his stuff ..." - that's a statement open to many interpretations  . Perhaps you mean he knows enough not to put anything decent on Ebay?

I would be pretty wary of someone who has sold tens of thousands of pounds worth of instruments on Ebay yet isn't registered as a business seller, and who refuses PayPal while listing it as a payment method ...!

 

Caveat Emptor writ large .....

[jacobsaunders]

Sometimes there are violins, where one gets more confused, the longer one looks at it. BF has got me even more confused with Füssen. Although the early Füssener makers built the ribs on the back without a mould, later, after the middle of the 18th C.ish, they had mostly adopted the inside mould/nail method. Since we agree that this violin is early 19th C. and made without a mould, that would seem to speak against Füssen. The wide fluting on both plates, with the purfling far from at the bottom of the valley, more well up-hill, rather makes me think of an old Schönbacher (which would also go with the ribs). What I can’t quite place, is the outline with the deep round C bouts, and wide f-hole placement. The S-shaped peg-box with a bit of a lump at the top where it goes over to the volute, as well as the slight delta from the rear view, would also go with old Schönbach, although I would expect a much more squarish scroll. Head scratching. Perhaps it is quite somewhere else, since one discovers “new” regional “schools” from time to time, just as I might have surprised some recently with Wölfelsdorf.

 

Regarding condition: I would say unequivocally that this violin has a back post crack. The small picture at the bottom of the listing shows the crack well away from the sound-post, but when one compares that with the crack position on the outside view of the back, one can only conclude that Mr. LiuterItaliana (who, with his record deserves nil benefit of the doubt!) must have stood the sound post up just about on the centre joint. These small soundpost patches, or better let-in studs are not unusual with old Czech repairs, and I have had serious problems repairing them before. They were made by digging a square hole in the back, with the floor of the square hole as good as never being flat, then a sunken stud being let in, with plenty of “glue-room”. I would be inclined too give short odds, that a sound post placed in the normal position, would push this crack open again, either straight away or soon. Repairing such wretched let in studs, leaves one with the alternative of digging them out, and doing the same again, or making a normal soundpost patch. The rear view of the back (between the bottom two corners) looks like there are subterranean worm-holes as well. Altogether a bit knackered, and not something that I would be prepared to pay a single Euro for.

[Blank face]

About the condition: I would expect the mentioned crack  "almost near the soundpost, but not exactly in the soundpost position" is the lower line, what you are suspecting as a subterranian wormhole; the other is more in the upper center, nothing I would bring into a relation with the soundpost. A crack near to the soundpost, but not exactly, in my eyes always is just a soundpost crack. The whole back is widely washed and revarnished (as Hendrik noticed), on the table the opposite: The old dirt is left to hide the badly repaired center cracks. From a "commercial" point of view, it's just worth the repair costs.

I can see your point with the wide fluting and the "uphill" purfling, but OTOH I cannot get the round hanging scroll with the broad back and thick sides (from the front view) to Schönbach, also the pattern. If you say, Füssen makers of the early 19th almost didn't work in the "old-fashioned" style without a mould, some conservatives possibly still have. But it might have been a maker, working as a journeyman in both regions, who settled down elsewhere (Bohemia, Austria, south Germany) and worked in his personal "criss-cross" style - and not in a very decent way.

[Ratcliffiddles]

It reminds me quite a bit of an Adam Martin, Neukirchen violin I once had.

[jacobsaunders]

About the condition: I would expect the mentioned crack  "almost near the soundpost, but not exactly in the soundpost position" is the lower line, what you are suspecting as a subterranian wormhole;

 

No the crack "secured" by the let-into-the-back studs is a sound-post crack, should you put the sound-post in it's usual place

[fiddlecollector]

Well where would you place this scroll? Or this other one?

[Ratcliffiddles]

Well where would you place this scroll?

At that angle, I'd say round about Mittenkirchen.

[jacobsaunders]

Well where would you place this scroll?

 

Would you try to recognise one from a single oblique Picture?

[Ratcliffiddles]

That's better! Mittenwald to my eye.

[fiddlecollector]

Why not thats what we are often shown on ebay ads on here?

[fiddlecollector]

That's better! Mittenwald to my eye.

Peter they are two different scrolls both from different countries.

[Ratcliffiddles]

ok... sorry, the second is UK born...

[fiddlecollector]

Ok try this?

 

[fiddlecollector]

Just trying to illustrate its easily to get confused with these type of scrolls.

No takers for no1 scroll?

[Blank face]

For the second I would risk a guess, that it's english, but only because the nice pegs look very british; I would exclude Schönbach for both .

The first Kloz?

 

"Both from Schönbach!" My god, I'm blamed....

[fiddlecollector]

Ok  heres instruments one and two. Neither look anything like the body on the ebay ad, which doesnt really prove anything,