Strad makeover?

[Omobono]

Remember a couple of threads a few years back about the early Strad with the Lioness painted on the back?

As far as I recall the question of what happened to it was never fully resolved, on this board anyway.

 

The story was something like this.

 A wannabe Strad with a later animal drawing on its back (a lioness with stripes?)

It went to auction, was recognized as an early Strad

the painting was removed and it was again sold.

 

In a 1904 London Exhibition it was presented as:

http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/An_Illustrated_Catalogue_of_the_Music_Loan_Exhibition_Held_By_the_1000108618/197

 

VIOLINS 155

Violin, Italian. By Antonio Stradivari. Cremona. [1680.]

The Hon. Robert O'Neill, M.P,
A specimen of the early period of Stradivari's work, with a painting of a
lioness on the back of the instrument. This painting is not the work of

Stradivari, and is of later date. Formerly the property of Aloys Kettenus,

a pupil of De Beriot, who died in 1897.

 

Using O'Neill as a clue

it now appears to be listed as the 1683 O'Neill.

Looking at the Tarisio provenance it matches:

 

Provenance

- Aloys Kettenus
in 1904 Robert O'Neill

from 1980 Sold by John & Arthur Beare
until 1982 Sold by Jacques Francais
from 1982 Current owner

 

another source

http://www.archiviodellaliuteriacremonese.it/strumenti/1683_violino_neill.aspx?f=457975

gives this provenance

Aloys Kettenus;

Robert O'Neill 1904;

J. & A. Beare 1980;

Jacques Français 1982;

Donna & David Szepessy 1982

 

Certificates from:

J. & A. Beare, Londra, 3 dicembre 1981;

Jacques Français, New York, 14 ottobre 1989;

Machold Rare Violins, Brema, Zurigo, New York, Vienna, 25 febbraio 2005

(One illustration (attached) has a Machold watermark)

 

I would guess the lioness was 'removed' somewhere around the time of the two sales in the 1980's.

and it was re-assigned.

 

The associated graphics are below:

Unless the top was kept for an unknown composite and another back?

An ebony button was added and the table cleaned up?

 

Please tell me if I've gone off track in this. 

Is it just an archival mix-up?

To further confuse matters the Italian site still lists a 'Lioness' of 1670-72 and a label of 1712..... 

What used appear on the old cozio.com files as the Lioness is no longer listed and the new tarisio.com archive.

The Tarisio O'Neill quotes a 1683 label.

The back length given in both cases however is identical at 35.6cm

The head is by Charles Beare.

 

becomes?

Or is this a different instrument?

 

[Omobono]

The more I look at this the more confused I get and the more they look like different fiddles.

Is that same hairline  'rectangular' blemish below the bass f-hole towards the edge in each of the 3 photos just a distraction? 

Roger, Bruce, can you throw an light on this?

 

In the blog here it states that the picture appeared to be disguising a couple of bad cracks.

Were these subsequently repaired?

 

http://www.aviolin.com/blog/?p=29 

[Ben Hebbert]

I've actually heard about this fiddle 'from the lions mouth', as I had photos of a similar violin of the same year that I was trying to track down. I think that a few of Beare's rivals - especially Albert Cooper tried to make a bit of a scandal about the removal of the painting - insinuating that it was an important part of the history of the violin, but as I understand it, the varnish on the back was pretty much gone except for the ground and it was clear that the painting had been thought about specifically to disguise some poorly restored cracks and damage to the back of the instrument - you can see that the front is in fairly poor shape. The painting was reckoned to be from around 1850, and was certainly regarded as old by the time of the 1904 exhibition - although strenuously not by Stradivari. I think mischief makers were able to imply an earlier date and greater importance. Of course it's easy to be dismissive of it now it's gone. 

 

As I understand it, it would have been impossible to restore the integrity of the back owing to the very poor condition without seriously compromising the painting. I think we can all be fairly circumspect about it and see that the painting was a second-rate bit of bodging. However this is exactly the kind of scenario that a university conservation seminar could spend hours on coming to highly divided opinions. To my mind it's awfully like the kind of Eugene Delacroix kitsch paintings of the period... and those Mirecourt violins with the scenes painted on the back - it's a pity that we don't get to see good quality colour photos of this, which might make for a better understanding of what went on. 

 

I think they probably did the right thing - but it's a difficult ethical decision. 

 

Oh, and yes they are the same fiddle, there may be an element of photographic distortion, and from the 1977 catalogue the instrument is in appallingly bad preservation. 

[Omobono]

Thanks, Ben.

If I narrow the older top from the 'Lioness" a little it does look a better match.

 

As to the muck up over dates?

 

The Lioness purportedly 'labelled 1712'

The 're-assigned' O'Neill 'labelled 1683'

 

And the ebony collar on the back button?

Isn't that also a little invasive?

 

I might suggest to tarisio.com they footnote the restored fiddle as the former 'Lioness'.

 

How sure are you out of 100%  it's not another Beare composite?

He did come up with a new head.

(What did he do with the old one, and what was it? We may never know.)

[Omobono]

Here are the heads, old (left) and new - Beare's (right).

The one on the right appears to match the color Machold photo.

[Addie]

Lions with stripes are generally considered to be tigers.

This opens the topic up to numerous puns, about maple, painted stripes, and how to treat sleeping tigers, but I'll leave those to someone of a less discerning character.

[Rue]

Liger.

[Rue]

Although. ..could be a tigon. Can't tell from the painting.

[Omobono]

I've actually heard about this fiddle 'from the lions mouth', as I had photos of a similar violin of the same year that I was trying to track down. I think that a few of Beare's rivals - especially Albert Cooper tried to make a bit of a scandal about the removal of the painting - insinuating that it was an important part of the history of the violin, but as I understand it, the varnish on the back was pretty much gone except for the ground and it was clear that the painting had been thought about specifically to disguise some poorly restored cracks and damage to the back of the instrument - you can see that the front is in fairly poor shape. 

 

As I understand it, it would have been impossible to restore the integrity of the back owing to the very poor condition without seriously compromising the painting.

I think they probably did the right thing - but it's a difficult ethical decision. 

On the painting removal thing........

It sounds like a decision was made to restore the instrument even to the detriment of the painting,

A commercially driven exercise, rather than aesthetic one, I would presume,

by the owner at the time, obviously on some sound advice.

To give the benefit of the doubt, I suppose the rationale was to return the instrument to something closer to its original appearance? 

I guess such decisions come around from time to time in the trade,

sometimes ill-advised. 

[Ben Hebbert]

It's actually quite funny that we are getting sentimental about the lion. One of the problems is that we are taking for granted the essential nature of the violin beneath it - it's a violin - so a work of art in itself, and in particular a work of art by the very greatest violin maker. However extensive the damage, it has proven to be restorable and the violin is a compelling and complete as an early Strad. 

 

If that mid-nineteenth-century lion was painted onto absolutely anything else, it wouldn't be considered to be a significant work of art at all, and I suppose we are tricked by the 'uniqueness' and the sentimentality of something that has already disappeared, to give it the attributes of merit. Beare's must have known that anyone who took the painting off would have a hard time defending themselves and sentimentality would end up having disproportionate influence. Even though at the end of it, a cheap and shitty painting was at stake. 

 

There is an even more bizarre situation on this line with the Marylebone Strad cello, which Jacques Francais painted up to be a decorated Strad. At the moment, the Smithsonian are entirely complicit with fraud by not calling it out - but are we really to suggest that Francais' rather ugly efforts should remain on that cello for ever, just because they are there now. 

 

So what happens - looking over the passing of time, if next year I buy a Strad, decide to paint it up, put it in a bank vault for 50 years and let the market decide the ethics of the painting... oddly, I think given disclosure of my motive, you would have no problem in advising a future generation to clean away my artwork!

 

As I say, I think this is an enormously difficult ethical dilemma, and maybe one I'd prefer not to take - but I don't see that destroying a second-rate painting was a bad choice given the resulting benefits - and that comes from a museum-conservation side of things as much as a market head. 

[Rue]

What if it were a painting by Picasso?

[Will L]

The tiger could be painted by any of a huge number of competent pottery decorators, so while it would be worth something in itself, it wouldn't be worth much.  It's not a work of art, it's a well done picture.  Personally, I don't see a dilemma.  There are hundreds of thousands of hand-painted vases and the like, and only 700+ Stradivari. But, perhaps I'm ethically challenged.

 

As to the picture being part of the history of the violin, if someone had laid a coat of varnish over it that too would be part of the history.  But anyone would take that off in a heart beat, if at all possible.

 

If the painting were by Picasso, that would be a heck of a wrinkle.   

[not telling]

It was Rene Morel who screwed with the Marylebone, which is nearly as disappointing as if Francais had done it imo. But Francais valued the violin of Kevin Lee Luthier at $30,000 (for insurance purposes but still), which I find almost as disappointing as if Charles Beare had done it. The French restorers are just disappointing in general, even considering that my husband learned the techniques those two restorers passed down to his own teachers and therefore he has huge respect for them. I know their skills were tremendous. But they weren't perfect, as everyone knows.

The liger had to go btw. Obvious.

[Omobono]

Beare's must have known that anyone who took the painting off would have a hard time defending themselves and sentimentality would end up having disproportionate influence. Even though at the end of it, a cheap and shitty painting was at stake. 

 

There is an even more bizarre situation on this line with the Marylebone Strad cello, which Jacques Francais painted up to be a decorated Strad.

The decoration on the Marlebone cello is quite removeable, I understand?

As to the Lioness, perhaps this is partly why no current reference is made to that former sobriquet.

As I mentioned, in some lists of instruments it is still there, right beside the 1683 O'Neill.

This includes the Italian site, Archivio Cremonese, about which I know little.

Interestingly they have removed any reference to its provenance except a previously ungazetted, John McClintock in 1974.

http://www.archiviodellaliuteriacremonese.it/it/strumenti/1670_violino_lioness.aspx?f=457975

[jezzupe]

Lions with stripes are generally considered to be tigers.

This opens the topic up to numerous puns, about maple, painted stripes, and how to treat sleeping tigers, but I'll leave those to someone of a less discerning character.

Ah, well my good man, I'll consider that an invitation   Speaking of cats and fiddles...I suppose that's one way to do a lioness, or shall we say one way to put the cat in the fiddle. But I like leopards with spots! And the lioness holding the leopard 

 

 

[Omobono]