(SN:218 S$1890) Master Violin-Copy of Joseph Guarneri Del Gesu Violin of the year 1730-Russian Spruce aged 20yrs.

The Construction and Materials of this Violin:

• · Vanish:      Italian antique varnished
• · Top:            Excellence Aged Russian spruce dried for 20 years
• · Back:          Selected Seasoned Flamed Maple Back dried for 15years
• · Fitting:      Ebony  or rosewood fitting
• · Fingerboard:  Advance Ebony
• · Soundpost:     European spruce
• · String:       Synthetic string
• · Bridge:      France Aubert bridge
• · Purfling:  Hand inlay

The Dimensions of the violin are:

– body length: 355mm

– lower bout: 208mm

– upper bout: 168mm

– middle: 115mm.

ABOUT JOSEPH  

GUARNERI DEL GESU: Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu ranks today as one of the two greatest violin makers of all time, although the marked difference between the appearance and sound of his instruments and those of  Stradivari makes comparison almost impossible. Some simply prefer Stradivari, and some (notably Paganini) prefer del Gesu.

Giuseppe trained with his father, Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andrea, and assisted him from about 1714 until 1722. In that year he left his father’s house to get married, and seems to have forsaken violin making for a few years. The earliest known instruments that are entirely his own work date from the late 1720s, but it was not until 1731 that he began to insert the label with the monogram IHS (‘Iesus Hominem Salvator’: ‘Jesus Saviour of Man’), which gave rise to his nickname ‘del Gesu’. He seems to have been strongly influenced by the Brescian school, and his work combines the best of the Cremonese tradition with the stretched C-bouts and exaggerated f-holes of Maggini and da Salo. Tonally, his instruments retain much of the sweetness of a Stradivari, but have a seemingly unlimited depth and darkness of sound, irrespective of the pressure of the bow. He reached his pinnacle as a craftsman in the mid-1730s, and produced some ravishingly beautiful instruments, such as the “King Joseph” of 1737. However, it is the later instruments that have come to represent all that is characteristic of del Gesu — the unbridled creativity, the astonishing disregard for the details of workmanship, and the sheer daring of design and construction that are the natural conclusion of the deeply ingrained individuality of the Guarneri family. The rapid spread of del Gesu’s fame in the mid-19th century was largely due to the patronage of Paganini, who played the “Cannon” of 1743 for most of his career.  (excerpted from Four Centuries of Violin Making by Tim Ingles.)