Plate XXV. — Violin, the Hellier Stradivarius, and Two Old Bows Noted for the Fluting
This is the beautiful “Hellier” Stradivarius Violin made in 1679 and bought by Sir Samuel Hellier of Womborne, Staffordshire, about the year 1734, from the maker himself. It remained in the Hellier family until 1875, when it was acquired by Mr. George Crompton, who subsequently disposed of it to Messrs. W.E. Hill and Sons of New Bond Street, formerly of Wardour Street, London, the experts in the violin section of the South Kensington Music Loan Collection of 1885. It now belongs to Mr. Charles Oldham, who possesses another inlaid violin dated 1687, which was originally made for the King of Spain, and completes his quartet of Stradivarius instruments. This Violin is considered to be one of the perfect earlier works of Stradivarius, and is of full proportions. It has greater breadth than the so-called “grand” pattern of that famous maker, and is one of his inlaid violins, of which there are not more than twelve extant. A letter of Stradivarius, recording the price (£40) Sir Samuel Hellier paid for it, was forthcoming until a few years ago, when it was unfortunately lost. We are not informed why Stradivarius should have kept this instrument in his own possession for fifty-five years—it seems likely that it had had another owner before Sir Samuel Hellier, and that Stradivarius had taken it back. The details of the ornament upon this Violin have been corrected from an exact tracing taken by Mrs. Huggins of Upper Tulse Hill, London, an earnest amateur of Stradivari’s violins. The Hellier Stradivarius was certainly one of the most remarkable examples that appeared in the unrivalled collection of famous violins exhibited at South Kensington in 1885.
A quotation from Mr. George Hart’s well-known book upon The Violin, its Famous Makers and their Imitators (London, 1884, p. 191), justly sums up the worth of those artificers when Italian violin-making most excelled. He says: “The chief merits of Stradivari and his contemporary makers were intuitive. Their rules, having their origin in experience, were applied as dictated by their marvellous sense of touch and cunning, with results infinitely superior to any obtained with the aid of the most approved mechanical contrivances. When to these considerations we add that devotedness of purpose without which nothing great in art has been accomplished, we have a catalogue of excellences sufficient to account for the greatness of their achievements.”
The bows that accompany the “Hellier” Stradivarius are from the collection of Messrs. Arthur and Alfred Hill. The violin bow, the medium by which the performer’s personality is transmitted to the instrument and its various powers are brought out, is not less worthy of admiration than the violin itself. The gradual improvement of the bow has followed the development and improvement of the violin, and the settlement of its form and materials in the last quarter of the last century by François Tourte, in reality made the violin a different instrument from what it had been before. With Tourte’s bow came a power of expression in violin-playing previously unknown.