Mittenwald Violin ID

[Blank face]

3 hours ago, nathan slobodkin said:

Time out for a side bar.

Has Luttgendorf  been translated to English? If so dies anyone know where to get a copy?

I'm assuming that there is an english translation of Jalovec' encyclopedia (saw it for sale somewhere) and because he used to copy most about the german makers from Lüttgendorf you might get the translation there.

Reg. genetic and other scientific researches, I made a most highly sarcastic remark about modern politics which has no place here like we know. I agree that these newspapers "Populärwissenschaft" essays are sometimes funny to read, every year or so coming out with "new" findings about how the first human looked like, behaved, if Dinos had feathers or not etc. etc. presenting such speculations as facts. Indeed I'm wondering if the Ötzi portrait (or of the Neanderthaler) was made after some of our old Hippie folks or a poor homeless. I can't stop thinking that all the reasoning about "Dünnwald graphs", "bridge hill" or acoustical spectrographs, singer formants etc. is very close to this.

OTOH, hearing clueless customers or other interested people asking so many times "How do you know how old" or "Why are you sure that this isn't that old as I'm believing" I'm glad that there's something like Dendro which can make an end to otherwise fruitless discussions.

[ClefLover]

18 hours ago, jack london said:

My ex-wife looked a lot like Otzi (note ex-wife).   I wonder if her ancestry was Sardinian....She did have a nice fiddle, though.

My wife claims I kind of look like the OP’s scroll... like a snake ready to bite.  Technically, she said “asp.”  Well, I think she said “asp,” but maybe I optimistically inserted the “p.” 

[Felefar]

22 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

Possibly goes to show that DNA analysis is about as much use as „Dendro“

 

You mean - moslty useful in showing what it is NOT? Yes, and thus extremely useful if you know how to ask the correct question, and also know enough to understand the answer.

[jacobsaunders]

I invite you to look at both cases, the violin and Ötzi, and ask yourself if you have learnt anything at all for certain that you didn’t know already.

[uguntde]

On 8/4/2018 at 7:56 PM, martin swan said:

This one from our archive didn't have its original varnish, but you can see that the quality of work (as Blank face points out) is in quite a different league from the OP violin : https://www.martinswanviolins.com/georg-kloz-violin-mittenwald-1772/

 

The Kloz family varnishes vary. There is this famous glue varnish which is water soluble. But you also find other varnishes, like the one on the violin depicted above. The German experts seem to accept this as Kloz.

[martin swan]

In this case there was a clear red residue in the end grain and in the nooks and crannies. 

The Hill archives recorded the violin as revarnished, Jacob thought the same, so that’s how I sold it.

[jacobsaunders]

5 minutes ago, uguntde said:

The German experts seem to accept this as Kloz.

I think rather, they were all carefull not too

[John_London]

11 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

Vague suggestions that Ötzi's ancestorship might have come from Sardinia or the Near East or from Tirol

 

On 8/4/2018 at 8:03 PM, Blank face said:

As I have in mind one of Ötzis most important belongings was a half completed bow. So if he had possesed a sort of pre-historic violin, too, we could argue if it was the beginning of the Italian or Tyrolean bowed instrument making. 

He was clearly in Tirol, if not from Tirol. "In October 2013, it was reported that 19 modern Tyrolean men were related to Ötzi." (Wikipedia). One of his namesakes makes shockingly kitsch records which the locals play in apres ski bars to the distress of their British customers, who remedy their suffering by buying more beer. So yes, there is a musical gene being passed down there in the DNA.

[feelingfaceform]

Some feedback via Email 

 

Hallo,

die Geige sieht nah einer süddeutshen Arbeit aus dem späten 18. Jh. aus, mehr kann ich von den fotos nicht erkennen. An ein Mitglied der Kloz Familie glaube ich aber weniger.

 

Viele Grüße

Hieronymus Köstler

 

 

 

Alexander

 

The top and scroll look like Kloz family, no problem. May well be Georg. If the back is not more recent (I cannot see details from only photos) then the whole thing is probably Kloz of some sort.

I would need to see the actual violin to be more sure. Also please be advised that I do not specialise in the Germanic school so may not be the ideal person to ask.

 

Best

 

Dmitry (Gindin)

 

Hallo Herr Nantschev,

vielen Dank für Ihre Mail und die Fotos. Wie Sie schon wissen, ist es immer

schwer ein Urteil nur von Fotos ab zu geben. Auf alle Fälle handelt es sich

um eine

Mittenwalder Arbeit, zwischen 1770 und 90. Mein erster Eindruck ist eher

eine Arbeit aus der Hornsteiner Familie.

Mehr kann ich Ihnen im Moment nicht mitteilen, ich müsste das Instrument

sehen.

 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Peter Körner

[Felefar]

13 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

I invite you to look at both cases, the violin and Ötzi, and ask yourself if you have learnt anything at all for certain that you didn’t know already.

 

"For certain"? I am a geologist, I am very used to reading scientific literature with intentionally vague wording - as well as the sensationalist headlines in "common" media. Reading the dendro report i learn that the violin is made of wood which was growing at a certain date, which means that it is not older than that. I also learn that it is a fair match for the reference data from Ötztal, which tells me the the tree grew somewhere in the Alps. 

As to Ötzi, some people with  the same genetic markers are now living in Sardinia and Corsica - but we don't know whether Ötzi came from there or they came from Ötztal, or they all came from somewhere else.

 

"For certain"? That doesn't happen often in science.

[jacobsaunders]

Anyone with experience on the “front line” of violin identification will know that the very mention of Ötztal, will encourage the present and subsequent owners to be under the impression that that is where the violin wood comes from. It doesn't actually say that, which was my complaint. Why put the  Ötztal bee in peoples bonnets at all? The Alps are quite big. They go from France to nearly Hungary.

Since you are a geologist, I vaguely remember from my Geography A level, that the Alps were formed some 70 million years ago (correct me please if that's wrong). One can hardly imagine what the breathless BBC reporting would be like if they had had to report on something like that live

[uguntde]

On 8/5/2018 at 8:28 PM, jacobsaunders said:

I think rather, they were all carefull not too

Not to or not too?

[jacobsaunders]

to, sorry

[uguntde]

To get some sense into this: how do you distinguish Hornsteiner from Kloz violins when there is no label? Is the U-shaped insert in any way typical? Also strange to replace a back with one with the U inserted, why not make a proper one? Maybe a secret signature from?

As a general rule I find that violins of this kind (German 18th century) without label are almost impossible to authenticate. Although, this one actually has a label.

With 'The German experts seem to accept this as Kloz' I meant solely the varnish, which is not the typical water soluble stuff. It seems to be accepted that this type of varnish appears on Kloz violins. They seem to have used different types of varnish.

 

[Violadamore]

On 8/6/2018 at 4:25 AM, jacobsaunders said:

Since you are a geologist, I vaguely remember from my Geography A level, that the Alps were formed some 70 million years ago (correct me please if that's wrong). One can hardly imagine what the breathless BBC reporting would be like if they had had to report on something like that live

You're probably repeating what your geography instructor said perfectly, but we know more now.  The Alps started to form about 65 million years ago, but the process accelerated and began most of the serious mountain building around 37 million years ago.  In some areas of that mountain belt, tectonic uplift is still continuing.

The BBC would see little to excite them.  The orogenic (mountain-building) process, being driven by continental and oceanic plates moving around, and bumping into (as well as sliding over, under, and around) each other, takes millions of years,.   Except for the occasional earthquakes and vulcanism, it's much like watching paint dry. 

[feelingfaceform]

11 hours ago, uguntde said:

As a general rule I find that violins of this kind (German 18th century) without label are almost impossible to authenticate. 

Is this true? There are many Italian 18th century violins without Label authenticated, or at least baptized)) So the German makers from this time have less “individuality” and specific details? Maybe I am expressing myself not right, just want to be sure, if that is a fact you can not authenticate these kind of instruments...

[Blank face]

5 hours ago, feelingfaceform said:

Is this true? There are many Italian 18th century violins without Label authenticated, or at least baptized)) So the German makers from this time have less “individuality” and specific details? Maybe I am expressing myself not right, just want to be sure, if that is a fact you can not authenticate these kind of instruments...

It's not true as a generalization. To define a "German violin" is difficult, too, there wasn't a Germany as we know it today during this period, if you think of Austrian, Silesia or some bohemian regions producing rather "German" cultural artefacts, but aren't regarded as Germany actually.

 These can be easily separated from each other, as well as those from the big centers like Mittenwald and Saxony/Markneukirchen.

 

It's true that many of the last can't be attributed to a particular maker  if they aren't featuring very idiosyncratic styles like some of the real good and well documented makers.

[uguntde]

6 hours ago, Blank face said:

It's not true as a generalization. To define a "German violin" is difficult, too, there wasn't a Germany as we know it today during this period, if you think of Austrian, Silesia or some bohemian regions producing rather "German" cultural artefacts, but aren't regarded as Germany actually.

 These can be easily separated from each other, as well as those from the big centers like Mittenwald and Saxony/Markneukirchen.

 

It's true that many of the last can't be attributed to a particular maker  if they aren't featuring very idiosyncratic styles like some of the real good and well documented makers.

It is hard to distinguish any different makers but Kloz from the Mittenwald school. Even with the early Hornsteiners it can be difficult without label, because they worked with Kloz family members.

Many of those German makers put in wrong labels, Kloz family members took Stainer labels, and later others used Kloz labels.

Regarding Italian violins I remember a Guarneri in an auction a few years ago with a Hamma certificate, which was proven not to be Guarneri by dendrochronology (probably a Voller Brothers).

 

[Blank face]

1 hour ago, uguntde said:

It is hard to distinguish any different makers but Kloz from the Mittenwald school. Even with the early Hornsteiners it can be difficult without label, because they worked with Kloz family members.

Many of those German makers put in wrong labels, Kloz family members took Stainer labels, and later others used Kloz labels.

Regarding Italian violins I remember a Guarneri in an auction a few years ago with a Hamma certificate, which was proven not to be Guarneri by dendrochronology (probably a Voller Brothers).

 

If it's about Mittenwald violins it's IMO better to name it alike and not "German 18th century ", or it's getting meaningless. What this has to do with the (mis)identification of a Guarneri is beyond my understanding .

[feelingfaceform]

 I just have been at my luthier. He saw that there is a label beneath. He asked me if he can remove it. As I was curious, I said yes and that is what appeared.

[martin swan]

It would be a logical error to assume that because a label is covered by a better label, it is necessarily genuine ...

[feelingfaceform]

1 minute ago, martin swan said:

It would be a logical error to assume that because a label is covered by a better label, it is necessarily genuine ...

If there would been a Strad label, definitely 

[Blank face]

I recall that I once had a very old Bohemian violin, labelled Amati. There was another label visible beneath, so I removed the first and read Jacobus Stainer - but I could see that there was a third, slightly smaller, under the Stainer label, which I soaked over night, removed it carefully and read "Antonius Stradivari faciebat".

Unfortunately it's IMO not to tell by the photos if this glue-covered label is an old original one or a later facsimile. So your violin is more similar to the model used by Ägidius http://www.geigenbaumuseum-mittenwald.de/index.php?id=177 than to Georg and he is described as "very productive", http://geigenbaumuseum-mittenwald.de/?id=141what could mean that he was running a big shop with employees, journeymen and apprentices, and possibly produced different qualities I won't exclude rigorously that it's from Ägidius' shop. So you would need to take or ship it to Köstler in person to get a qualified opinion, as he suggested.

[martin swan]

 

1 minute ago, feelingfaceform said:

If there would been a Strad label, definitely 

You are falling into the logical trap. First compare the violin with other reference examples for Aegidius Kloz.

[feelingfaceform]

1 minute ago, martin swan said:

 

You are falling into the logical trap. First compare the violin with other reference examples for Aegidius Kloz.

Will do