Philip J. Kass is an appraiser, expert, and author on violins and violinmaking based in Havertown, PA.  Member, Appraisers Association of America and 25 year Associate of William Moennig & Sons, Ltd. This article was updated on October 24, 2011.

The Maker’s Late Career

It’s 1777.  You’re a violin maker who has been working for decades, struggling to make a living.  You’ve recently worked on a number of late Stradivari violins, and you’re realizing that this may be where the future lies.  You don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of history.  What do you do?

 

“You don’t want to be caught on the
wrong side of history.  What do you do?“

If your name is Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, the first thing you do is add ‘alumnus Antonio Stradivari’ to your label. Few of your customers are old enough to know whether or not this is true. You adopt some good ideas in the Stradivaris you worked on, but that doesn’t mean you change everything in your work, just those features that outwardly reflect Stradivari. However, you haven’t seen any Strad cellos, and those instruments have been among your most successful. How do you address this?

Ever resourceful, Guadagnini came up with the solution of making the same types of cello that he had always made, but adopting certain stylistic details that he had recently incorporated into his violin designs.  This approach is apparent in one of his very last cellos, indeed one of his very last instruments, the ‘ex-Sidney Huxham’ of 1783.

Guadagnini Cellos

Guadagnini was an early adopter of the small cello form, making instruments between 71 and 72 cm (unlike most of the classic Cremonese cellos, which were 74 cm and up) and sometimes, as in the case of this 70 cm cello, even smaller.  There is nothing of Stradivari’s ‘forma B’ about these instruments, however; their round bouts and broad middles are strongly expressive of their maker.  Their archings, fairly full to the edges, without a lot of hollowing through the margins, also remain consistently Guadagnini in character.

“Guadagnini was an early adopter
of the small cello form“

A browse through Duane Rosengard’s Guadagnini book, which features a number of fine cellos, shows just how consistent his approach remained. The easiest comparison, year-wise, is with the ‘Simpson’ of 1777, built six years before the ‘Huxham’.  The model is essentially the same, but the edges and corners of the ‘Huxham’ are heavier and blunter.  These late cellos, compared with his works from Parma, seem to seek a boldness, heaviness and solidity reminiscent of Stradivari’s own later works.  One notes particularly how delicate the rounded edges and long thin corners of the Parma works are, and how thin the scroll chamfers are, compared with the broad black bevels on the Turin-period scrolls.

“Stradivari character comes out in the details”

Stradivari character, particularly that of the very late instruments such as those that Count Cozio had bought from Paolo Stradivari, comes out in the details.  The wings on the f-holes are broader than in the past and have a gentle fluting.  In the same vein, the edges and especially the corners, are broader and heavier. The scroll model remains constant, and is very deeply gouged out in the volutes.

Details of the ‘Huxham’

Some evidence of Guadagnini’s advanced age (he turned 70 the year he made the ‘Huxham’) also reveals itself in this cello. The approach itself is robust. The rib miters at the corner joints are broad and filed to a thicker point than one sees on earlier instruments. The surfaces of the wood on both spruce and maple also bear faint scars from a coarse proto-sandpaper that Guadagnini adopted for finishing surfaces. Most of these would in any case have been hidden under the varnish, but they are usually distinctly visible in his late Turin works.

The f-holes remind us of Guadagnini’s long-time challenge with the ‘f’ placement. The inner notches are cut at the right length, but the treble ‘f’ has crept up on the top so that its upper hole is a good 2–3 mm higher than the upper hole of the bass. Perhaps as a compromise, the outer treble notch is cut proportional to the ‘f’ itself, leaving a noticeable space between the two. For the holes themselves, Guadagnini reverted to form, carving large ovals, especially for the lower holes, that hark back to his Milan and Parma days. Had he not done so, the wings would have been enormous.

Inside, the workmanship is classic Guadagnini, the corner blocks briskly cut back with a broad gouge, exposing parts of the ends of the C bout linings and leaving tool marks for all to see.

“The persuasiveness of the varnish restoration
speaks volumes for the restorers’ skill“

This is not to say that this cello is perfect, for indeed, it has one significant issue, one which serves as a warning to all those prizing fine instruments: its varnish is almost entirely new except for the ground.  And this occurred within living memory, when owners and connoisseurs should know better.  Some years after the ‘Huxham’ was last sold, it suffered damage at the hands of a ‘restorer’; as a result, most of its original varnish was removed. The tragedy had one small but critical silver lining: the original ground remained intact.  A while later, after its owner grasped the full scope of this violation, it was taken to the restoration workshop of Joseph Grubaugh & Sigrun Seifert in Northern California. With photographs of the cello as their guide, and using only varnish ingredients that were in common use in Guadagnini’s lifetime, Grubaugh & Seifert meticulously added varnish to the original ground and then carefully antiqued the new varnish layers to replicate the color, texture and density of the original. The result is its present breathtaking state, which succeeded in seducing a consensus of the world’s leading experts (yours truly included) until the full story was known.  The quality and compelling persuasiveness of the varnish restoration speaks volumes for the restorers’ skill and their insistence that the true story be told correctly speaks volumes of their integrity.

Provenance

“Doring included it in his milestone book on the Guadagnini family.”

This cello has lived in the USA for over 75 years. Its earliest documents indicate that Charles Tunsch of Berlin acquired it from Maucotel & Deschamps in 1923. He kept it only briefly, selling it to Erich Lachmann, who brought it to the USA and sold it to Rudolph Wurlitzer. In 1927 they sold it to Sidney Huxham of Montclair, New Jersey. Huxham sold it to William Lewis & Son in 1944, at which time it was seen by Ernest Doring. Doring included it, along with photos, in his milestone book on the Guadagnini family. In 1949 Lewis sold it to Frederick Perfect of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who would keep it for many years. In 1972 it was acquired by William Moennig & Son of Philadelphia, who sold it to its current owner.