Surviving works from Andrea Amati

[Omobono]

Your photograph, and the black and white from Houel's fascinating bit of work are of the same lira in the Kunsthistoriches Museum. 

I found the reference on p. 87, as you suggest.

[Omobono]

This instrument is given as  a violin of Ventura Linarol, Venezia, 1591, in the same book of Melkus.

 

[Ben Hebbert]

Thanks Omobono - I've not seen that good a picture of this. The instrument has had its 'politics', and last time I was at the Kunsthistoriches museum it was in a display case, half inside a holster violin case in order to show the public how that kind of case worked.

 

Actually, the KHM instruments are others that have been significantly affected by the whole Moens "problems of authenticity" debate. I've heard various inconsistent musings about this particular violin, that it is composite or just fake. Gerhard Stradner who retired as head of the KHM published in the galpin society journal all the evidence that the core collection had passed into the Hapsburgs through the Este-Austria dynasty, had been the core collection of the Estense, but had been put together by the Mantova-Benevides family at the end of the sixteenth-century. Inventories survive from this period, which he publised but unfortunately Moens' logic and the propensity for other museum curators to follow it like sheep means that many of these things have been relegated as inauthentic or questionable. The last thing I heard about the violin was that the top was right but the rest of the violin was made around it - on the logic that it was in far too good condition to be genuine (I'll let you make your own minds up). Much though I doubt that to be the case, if it were, a genuine Linarol violin top on it's own still says an incredible amount about Venetian making of the period whether the rest of it has any value or not, so it seems a pity to use it for a demonstration about violin cases (even Glenn might agree!). I haven't seen enough of it to make a judgement on it's authenticity, but what I have seen of it doesn't draw any questions or doubt. It just seems generally consistent with early Venetian making, and generally consistent with the other examples in the same museum that the museum considers  l e s s   l i k e l y   t o   b e   i n a u t h e n t i c.

 

Incidentally it's informative to compare the linarol with the (rather extraordinary) Ole Bull da Salo, and Amati's work. The soundholes are even more exagerated, but you can see that it's all out of the same ballpark.

 

[Blank face]

There is a Ventura Linarol Viola da Gamba from the KHM pictured in the Strad calendar 2005 (April), which shows many analogies to the violin, for instance the soundholes (although the da Gamba's have no nicks, the bridge is positoned below them),and  scroll. The birdseye back is doubletriple-purfled, the belly just simple.While the back has some cracks, the belly is in an exceptional good condition, what makes me speculate it could be an addition, possibly copied from the violin?

It's a very interesting topic, though I cannot add more than some thoughts and observations. The Ole Bull da Salo, which is pictured in the Melkus' booklet, too, is IMO much more similar to the Amati as to any Brescian (or Venetian) style, and the fingerboard appears much to long for the period - what about the neck, is it still original or a grafted? I'm supposing, you had the opportunity to examine it?

[Ben Hebbert]

Blankface, I spent a couple of days with the Ole Bull when it was in Salo a few years ago for an exhibition. I came to it very cynically as superficially it is a bit too different for my liking to, but at the end of the time, despite viewing it with maximum prejudice, I became reconciled to it being da Salo, and actually feeling that it was unlikely to be anyone else. The arching is incredibly difficult to read (especially in photos) because of the five strand purfling but when you get a sense of it it works very well against other da Salos, and not against Andrea Amati's (I was living in Oxford at the time, so the very next day went into the Ashmolean whilst my mind was still fresh with it, and got the Andrea Amati and da Salo viola taken to the print room for me to mull over). Also, the vertical termination of the corners are another small feature that puts it more towards Gaspar than other possibilities. It's difficult (and probably not very helpful to try) to write all my impressions, but those stick out especially.

 

As for the fingerboard, I believe it's actually documented that Vuillaume extended it. Whether it was him or not it had been lengthened for Ole Bull, it's very obvious when you know it's there, about an inch down from the top of the body. Really elegantly done. Ole Bull called the instrument the "Jewel House" da Salo, and claimed the head is by Cellini. The head is certainly stylisitically ****very*** similar in carving as well as polychrome decoration to the 1574 cittern - made by Girolamo Virchi - in the KHM, which was the gift to Archduke Ferdinand of the Tyrol. (Although I'll wimp out of saying they are the same hand. I dunno - could be.) Whether there is any truth in the Cellini suggestion or not (which logically would apply to both), his father was an instrument maker, his biography mentions how he would be put to work carving for musical instruments, but there is no evidence that this is anything other than conflation. At the very least the evidence of the heads puts the two instruments in the same city - Brescia. It doesn't worry me that the cittern head on an instrument firmly attributed to another maker *** could be *** by the same hand, I think there is an acceptable case to suggest that they were both made by a professional carver(s) for the purposes of an instrument maker. In short I think the evidence of the Ole Bull being by da Salo vastly outweighs evidence supporting a hypothesis that Virchi may have made it. IMHO.

 

I stress that the Ole Bull is so Cremonese in it's way, that it is very difficult to take it seriously as Brescian until you have a seriously long look at it in person.

 

All fun, isn't it!

[Michael Appleman]

Ben, as the Ole Bull is in such fine preservation, what are its constructional features like? Does it have corner blocks and linings (or were they added later)? Does it have a through-neck, or has it had a top block added?

[Ratcliffiddles]

This instrument is given as  a violin of Ventura Linarol, Venezia, 1591, in the same book of Melkus.

 

 

 

I believe the above has a latest tree ring dated 1485....

[Ben Hebbert]

Ben, as the Ole Bull is in such fine preservation, what are its constructional features like? Does it have corner blocks and linings (or were they added later)? Does it have a through-neck, or has it had a top block added?

I wish I could say more on it. The exhibition was in the Salo town hall, and the time properly with it was minimal and not in the circumstances that allowed poking around with a torch - the rest was comparing it with other things that were behind glass over the two days I was there... Frustrating.

The neck was definitely original, I don't remember anything about its setting, if it was at the original angle or not. It may be irrelevant, but I saw a Kleynman very recently with an original through-neck that had been sawn through and re-angled sometime in the distant past very effectively without touching the root of the neck.

[Michael Appleman]

Thanks Ben. I should get to bed, now, but I just wanted to float out my confusion about what is known about Brescian construction methods. I'm afraid I've never personally seen a Da Salo nor a Maggini that hasn't been "tampered with" in terms of blocks, linings and neck attachment. I've heard and read certain things, like the plates being hollowed out with a "ball rasp" so needing wedges to support the end blocks, but I've heard conflicting accounts of what the original end blocks, or through-neck, depending on the source, should have looked like. I've heard that there were no linings nor corner blocks originally, but the instruments I've seen have all had corner blocks and linings added at some point. I owned and played on at one point a very nice "Mariani," (certified as such in the early 20th century, but I imagine a late 17th-early 18thc Füssen or ?) and there was really little to go on to try to imagine what those constructional details might have been originally from observing the instrument. 

 

Edit-I shouldn't post at 1h30AM(paris time). I understand there's a pretty strong consensus about methods, it's certain details that I find murky, the sort that should have bugged us much more about "late Magginis" until dendro showed them to be made by someone else...

[Blank face]

Thank you Ben for sharing this rare information! Also thanks to Michael and Peter - how did you manage to analyze the tree rings from this blurred b&w picture (or were you just kidding)?

 

Most interesting are the photos from the Strad calendar 2005, the Linarol V da Gamba, and 2002, the Girolamo da Virchi (and I think I won't violate the copyright showing it for educational purpose only). Is it possible to analyze tree rings from this pictures, too?

[Ben Hebbert]

Michael - 1.30 in the morning (Paris time) ... let's not get into Mariani's in this thread ... my experience is probably the same as you. If there are genuine Mariani's or even a genunie Pisaro school of making, it's incredibly slender. By contrast, 99 out of 100 Marianis I have seen have either been early German or early not-Brescian things that look like Maggini or da Salo. I'd be seriously interested in seeing a line up of genuine examples.

 

Blankface -there are virtues in the fact that the KHM have a policy of organised neglect on their instruments rather than conserving them everytime there is a problem (a bit like the bodyfarm, I know), because sometimes you get to see things that are "restored out" of other instruments. The cracks on the back are more a result of aging than a traumatic event happening to the instrument. You see a lot of cracks similar to this on old English/French/German viols. They are caused by the differential expansion of having spruce transverse bars glued onto the back. The differential can also be enough to smash through the sides of ribs in some cases, or at least push them off the back. Historic guitars have many of the same problems. Having seen most of the other Linarol, Ciciliano, Giovanni Maria of Brescia (who worked in Venice) and other early Venetian instruments that survive, I can't see any case to doubt its integrity. The 1583 Ventura Linarol bass in the NMM (South Dakota) is substantially similar to this and is in similar condition respecting the back cracks. It may also inform bridge position, which I think is wrong (even accounting for the long tailgut) on the present setup in the KHM - I don't think the NMM is particularly right though either...

 

Incidentally, here is Paolo Veronese's Hermes, Herse & Aglauros, painted after 1576, but not after his death in 1588 (obviously)... the viol on the table has the same proportions to the fold (i.e. neck root at about 50% of the rib height), same scroll design and other features that make it as compelling as it could possibly be (from such an awkward angle) as a depiction of another of the same design. Anyone interested in bridge design, take note: 

 

http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/italy_pages/143/FRM_PIC_SE-143.html

[Roger Hargrave]

What's the total amount of stringed instruments attributed to Andrea Amati that survive today?

 

According to the Metropolitan Museum website "eight small and large violins, three violas, and five violoncellos are all that survive. Eight of these bear the coat of arms of Charles IX of France, and so were probably completed before the French king's death in 1574. (The authenticity of these instruments has recently been challenged, possibly making authenticated instruments by Andrea Amati even more scarce.)"

 

According to a wikipedia article a set of instruments could have been made for the marriage of king Philip II of Spain with Elisabeth of Valois on 1559. Is that possibly true? Both Charles IX and Elisabeth of Valois were sons of Catherine de Medici and according to an article written by Robert Hargrave (refering to the Charles IX instruments only) "Catherine de Medici was a Florentine. She was the daughter of Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino. (The Medici family, being one of the most powerful political forces in Florence and Tuscany, not only married into many royal families of Europe, but financed them.) It is known that when Catherine married King Henry II of France, she brought with her musicians and dancers from Italy. Over the years she promoted poetry, music and movement at the French court and much of this was performed or inspired by Italian artists, notably her director of court festivals, Baltazarmi di Belgioso. Such people may have been responsible for ordering the instruments from Andrea."

 

It’s not that I object to being called Robert Hargrave, but I would find Bob rather hard to swallow. I think that I was the first person to open up the Ashmolean collection. In the seventies the 'Hill' collection room was always locked and you had to make an appointment. The curator was extremely nice and realized the problems that the 'control' exerted by the Hill family was causing. One day I asked Desmond Hill if I could examine the 'Alard'. At the time I was making a copy which the Hills later sold. He gave me a letter to take to the museum. This allowed me to take the Alard down to the library and examine it at really close quarters. I know that Pringle made drawings of the instruments but when I told David Hill that his drawings were not very accurate he told me that they were very accurate because they had been made taken from the best available photographs. I had no real answer to that one. Gradually through visiting the museum every week end I gained the trust of the staff and managed to take out and examine all the instruments except the Messiah. Then one glorious day I even managed this. The next step was to invite John Dilworth and then Daniel Draley who took the photographs that almost stopped the process. But by this time the box had been opened and when I began writing about the Amati family the visitors started to arrive. Now, as this topic has shown the articles that I wrote in the 1980's have been superseded. New instruments have been discovered, one of which I am proud to say I played a small part in. And that's the way it should be. For me there were no greater makers than the Amati family and Andrea for me still ranks highest of all. Without him there would be no del Gesù and no Cremonese system. We owe him more than we can ever imagine. Of course as we are also seeing he was standing on the backs of those that went before, but he is the man who ran the first 4 minute mile of fiddle making.   

[GlennYorkPA]

........a genuine Linarol violin top on it's own still says an incredible amount about Venetian making of the period whether the rest of it has any value or not, so it seems a pity to use it for a demonstration about violin cases (even Glenn might agree!). 

 

Well, maybe although, lord knows, there are regrettably few displays of historical cases.

I didn't notice this display on my visits to the KHM - maybe I missed it in the gloom.

Were any claims made for the authenticity or provenance of that particular  holster case?

 

Glenn

[Ratcliffiddles]

 Is it possible to analyze tree rings from this pictures, too?2014-09-04 08-58-52_0014.jpg

 

 

Easy,  1537

 

(no, of course you can't... unfortunately, I can't take the credit for these datings, done by Micha Beuting)

 

 

However I have done a Virchi cittern in Cité de la Musique in Paris inventory D.MR.R.434   with a latest ring date of 1530

[Ben Hebbert]

In response to Bob Roger (who certainly ran the first four minute mile in communicating accurate research about Amatis), I had quite a revealtory experience at the 2005 conference in South Dakota. Bob Bein and a few similar figures were there, and a few of us got to look properly at the instruments in the conservation labs before the conference started. Having had the luxury of seeing the Oxford and Tullie House violins at my leisure, it was amazing to discover that many of the gods of the violin world had never properly looked at them, and were genuinely experiencing something completely new. It's easy for us to forget that its only in the last ten years that the availabitlity of these instruments has exponentially increased. I wouldn't say that makes research easier, but it allows us to look far more widely at the problems of these instruments, and occasionally to supercede knowledge which was the result of the best possible research at the time! I hope it doesn't sound like new ideas take old ideas (and the people who researched them) for granted.

[Ben Hebbert]

Courtesy of Tarisio, here are pictures of the Amati back (I posted the later ribs a little earlier) sold in 2010. The top and scroll are later and both completely inconsistent with genuine Amati work (but before it was cut down), but rather importantly, Peter Ratcliff has also pointed out that the top dendros to wood used in France circa 1700: More evidence if we needed it of the existence of painted Amatis in France long before the proposed period in which they were all faked.

 

Incidentally, the dendro date doesn't agree with a putative Louis XIV-period use of the motto around the edge (see earlier posts) which may mean that the ribs are residual from an earlier Louis XIV-period rebuilding, separate from when the top was replaced, and separate from when it was chopped down:  Or it may mean we have much more to learn. One thing's for sure, it's been chewed to death!

 

I'm looking forward to seeing Roland Houel's reconstruction of this

 

Also if anyone has any guesses about the decoration, as far as can be made out, its a completely unrecorded scheme.

[Roger Hargrave]

In response to Bob Roger (who certainly ran the first four minute mile in communicating accurate research about Amatis), I had quite a revealtory experience at the 2005 conference in South Dakota. Bob Bein and a few similar figures were there, and a few of us got to look properly at the instruments in the conservation labs before the conference started. Having had the luxury of seeing the Oxford and Tullie House violins at my leisure, it was amazing to discover that many of the gods of the violin world had never properly looked at them, and were genuinely experiencing something completely new. It's easy for us to forget that its only in the last ten years that the availabitlity of these instruments has exponentially increased. I wouldn't say that makes research easier, but it allows us to look far more widely at the problems of these instruments, and occasionally to supercede knowledge which was the result of the best possible research at the time! I hope it doesn't sound like new ideas take old ideas (and the people who researched them) for granted.

 

This is an important point. You can only know about that with which you are familiar. That's why I don't have much knowledge of anything much outside of classical Cremona. I had a similar experience with Jacques Francais in New York. In 1983 he showed me a viola. I said, 'Oh yes a beautiful early Brothers Amati'. He said that that is what he had first thought, but pointed out that the back edges were thick and quite flat with just the top and bottom rounded off. But I pointed out that this is exactly what the Ashmolean viola edge looks like. He saw many more instruments than me, but he had somehow missed out on these early Cremonese instruments because they were rare and mostly locked away in museums.

[bcncello]

It’s not that I object to being called Robert Hargrave, but I would find Bob rather hard to swallow.

Sorry Roger, I've fixed that! 

[Omobono]

For me there were no greater makers than the Amati family and Andrea for me still ranks highest of all. Without him there would be no del Gesù and no Cremonese system. We owe him more than we can ever imagine. Of course as we are also seeing he was standing on the backs of those that went before, but he is the man who ran the first 4 minute mile of fiddle making.   

I remember Michael Darnton's remark here some years back, that without Andrea we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

Here's to 500 years and counting.

 

http://www.maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/312237-who-is-number-three/?p=322543

[Bruce Carlson]

Ben, as the Ole Bull is in such fine preservation, what are its constructional features like? Does it have corner blocks and linings (or were they added later)? Does it have a through-neck, or has it had a top block added?

The violin currently has spruce corner blocks and linings. The c-bout linings do not appear to be let into the corner blocks. The neck block and the end block appear to have wedges at each end to fill the gap which one would expect to see on a Brescian instrument. The added wedges create the flat gluing surfaces for these two blocks. The neck set is a conventional mortise into the neck block (no nails). As Roger said, the original fingerboard has been lengthened in imitation of the original.

 

I tend to doubt that the original construction was that way and there is no trace of a platform for a through neck.

 

There is a square chest patch between the soundholes and the bassbar is conventional (relatively modern).

 

Bruce

[Rick Hyslop]

The violin currently has spruce corner blocks and linings. The c-bout linings do not appear to be let into the corner blocks. The neck block and the end block appear to have wedges at each end to fill the gap which one would expect to see on a Brescian instrument. The added wedges create the flat gluing surfaces for these two blocks. The neck set is a conventional mortise into the neck block (no nails). As Roger said, the original fingerboard has been lengthened in imitation of the original.

 

I tend to doubt that the original construction was that way and there is no trace of a platform for a through neck.

 

There is a square chest patch between the soundholes and the bassbar is conventional (relatively modern).

 

Bruce

 

Bruce et al.

 

Forgive me if this is a naive question.

 

I realize that the violin in question may have had work done, but I had thought that early Brescian makers generally tended to use a through neck and no corner blocks. Am I way off base in this thought ? If not why is there no evidence of a platform for a through neck in this case ?

 

r.

[Bruce Carlson]

Bruce et al.

 

Forgive me if this is a naive question.

 

I realize that the violin in question may have had work done, but I had thought that early Brescian makers generally tended to use a through neck and no corner blocks. Am I way off base in this thought ? If not why is there no evidence of a platform for a through neck in this case ?

 

r.

Hi Rick,

 

No, not naive at all. I was only saying that today there is no trace of a through neck. Many Brescian instruments have had the corner blocks and linings added later by someone who decided they knew more and "improved" it.

 

All I have to go on are some mediocre x-ray images and some very grainy endoscope photographs. This is why I use the word "appear" so much.

 

Bruce

[francoisdenis]

I will be curious to study the measurements of this instrument (ole bull). Does somebody could provide them to me?

 

François Denis

[Bruce Carlson]

 

I will be curious to study the measurements of this instrument (ole bull). Does somebody could provide them to me?

 

François Denis

 

Hi François,

 

I might have some measurements but I am going to have to look for them. It may take some time. I'm not as organised as I would like to be.

 

Bruce

[francoisdenis]

I still regret to not have had the possibility to seriously studied Amati instruments measurements when they were exposed to Cremona. Created early in the Renaissance; all the models of these instruments have been used as example and reference to each generations of luthiers. I am convinced that these intruments still have things to teach us about our early history. 

I have personally studied the Sabatier (stored in Paris) and I was surprised it was not originally constructed on the same mold as the Charles IX of Cremona. The Sabatier is actually a homotétique magnification of the form of small (Carlish type). I also noted homotheties between forms of Brescia and Cremona those (attached the outline of tenor Andrea Amati is compared to that of a viola by Gasparo after being reduced to the same size, it appears that forms are basically the same).

A large study remains to be done