“A violin varnished as I have indicated will look a little better than other new violins from the first; the back will look nearly as well as the Vuillaume Stradivarius, but not quite. The belly will look a little better if properly prepared; will show the fibre of the deal better....
“... Sand-paper is a great enemy to varnish; it drives more wood-dust into the pores than you can blow out.... The back of the Vuillaume Stradivarius, which is the finest part, has clearly not been sand-papered in places, so probably not at all.”
With regard to the tone of the instrument, some comments written in 1864 by the well-known authority, F. J. Fetis, are worthy of repetition. He writes of the Salabue Stradivari: “This genuine memorial of ancient manufacture—this instrument which has not resounded under the bow for nearly a century and a half—gives striking refutation to the idea that a free and pure tone cannot be produced from a violin until after it has been long in use; for here, in this new instrument, we find in combination all the qualities of power, mellowness, roundness, delicacy, freedom, with a noble and penetrating tone. In a word, this violin is a type of external beauty and of sonorous perfection.”
Nevertheless it is our opinion after a careful trial that the instrument would be greatly improved in tone by further use.
These descriptions of one of the finest instruments in existence, from the hands of devoted and disinterested lovers of the Cremona handiwork, leave hardly anything to be added except the exact measurements of the violin, which are as follows:—
Height of sides:—At the top, 1³⁄₁₆ inches; at the bottom, 1¼ inches.
The label affixed to Le Messie is presented below in fac-simile.
