od work, model of Jacob
Stainer. Thin varnish, sometimes yellow colour.

STADELMANN, Johann Joseph, Vienna, 18th century. Copied Stainer;
average merit.

STAINER, Jacob, Absam, born July 14, 1621, at Hall.

Jacobus Stainer in Absam
prope Oenipontum. 16--

The celebrity of this maker is second only to that of the great
Cremonese artists. His admirers in Germany and England were, at one
time, more numerous than those of the principal Italian makers. In a
manuscript note which Sir John Hawkins added to his own copy of his
History of Music (1776), he says, "The Violins of Cremona are exceeded
only by those of Stainer, a German, whose instruments are remarkable
for a full and piercing tone." To the connoisseur of to-day such
commendation may seem inexplicable, and cause him to believe that
Fiddle admirers of past times were incapable of appreciating true
beauty of form, and its bearing upon sound, or else that fashion made
its influence felt on the Fiddle world as elsewhere. It would be
absurd to deny that the greatest German maker of Violins that ever
lived was a man of rare abilities, because it is indelibly written on
his chief works that he was a thorough artist. Therefore an expression
of surprise that Jacob Stainer has been estimated higher than even
Stradivari by the Germans and English, must not be understood as a
reflection on his abilities, since it refers to the form that he chose
to give to his works. To account for the apparent inconsistency in the
works of Stainer, and to strike the balance between his exceptional
abilities on the one side and his model on the other, is not easy. His
form was not a borrowed one; it is as original as that of
Stradivari--a fact which makes it more than ever unintelligible that
he should have been content with it. To arrive at anything approaching
to a satisfactory solution, we must endeavour to trace the history of
this model. Jacob Stainer was born in the Tyrol, and passed there his
early years, and probably received his first instructions from one of
the old Tyrolean Lute and Viol makers, at a period when they raised
their model, and introduced into the German School the scooping round
the sides of the backs and bellies, the inelegant sound-hole, the
harsh outline, and uncouth scroll. As experience ripened his
understanding, he may have felt that these characteristics of the
German School were not such as could be moulded with advantage by an
artist, whatever his